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TH1 


Create 


PREFACE. 


style  of  these  heroic  times  ? 
>gs  not  back  the  mastodon — 
imes  ;  and  why  should  any  man 
-.?" 


JAMES  J. 


DEAN   AND   PROFESS 
DISEASES   AT 
PROFEe 


he  Idyls 

-n   to   the   Morte   L 
r  the  aptest    expression 

as   The 

Centuries,     Though  Tennyson  was 
modeling  the  thoughts  of  th 
not  be  willing  to  concede — 


>thing  new  was  said,  or  else, 
tething  so  said,  'twas  nothing," 


GEORC 


rould  make  a  large  lacui 


Dually  blair 
CATH( 


at,  with 

work  that  is  being 
Lake  Chamr 


CB 


V\J3 


PREFACE. 

"  Why  take  the  style  of  these  heroic  times  ? 
For  nature  brings  not  back  the  mastodon — 
Nor  we  those  times  ;  and  why  should  any  man 
Remodel  models  ?  ' ' 

What  Tennyson  thus  said  of  his  own  first  essay  in  the  Idyls 
of  the  King,  in  the  introduction  to  the  Morte  D' Arthur, 
occurs  as  probably  the  aptest  expression  of  most  men's 
immediate  thought  with  regard  to  such  a  subject  as  The 
Thirteenth,  Greatest  of  Centuries.  Though  Tennyson  was 
confessedly  only  remodeling  the  thoughts  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  we  would  not  be  willing  to  concede — 

"  That  nothing  new  was  said,  or  else, 
Something  so  said,  'twas  nothing," 

for  the  loss  of  the  Idyls  would  make  a  large  lacuna  in  the 
literature  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  "if  it  is  allowed  to 
compare  little  things  with  great,"  a  similar  intent  to  that  of 
the  Laureate  has  seemed' sufficient  justification  for  the  para- 
dox the  author  has  tried  to  set  forth  in  this  volume.  It  may 
prove  "nothing  worth,  mere  chaff  and  draff  much  better 
burnt,"  but  many  friends  have  insisted  they  found  it  inter- 
esting. Authors  usually  blame  friends  for  their  inflictions 
upon  the  public,  and  I  fear  that  I  can  find  no  better  excuse, 
though  the  book  has  been  patiently  labored  at,  with  the  idea 
that  it  should  represent  some  of  the  serious  work  that  is  being 
done  by  the  Catholic  Summer  School  on  Lake  Champlain, 


V 

vi  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

now  completing  nearly  a  decade  and  a  half  of  its  existence. 
This  volume  is,  it  is  hoped,  but  the  first  of  a  series  that  will 
bring  to  a  wider  audience  some  of  the  thoughts  that  have  been 
gathered  for  Summer  School  friends  by  many  workers,  and 
will  put  in  more  permanent  form  contributions  that  made 
summer  leisure  respond  to  the  Greek  term  for  school. 

The  object  of  the  book  is  to  interpret,  in  terms  that  will  be 
readily  intelligible  to  this  generation,  the  life  and  concerns  of 
the  people  of  a  century  who,  to  the  author's  mind,  have  done 
more  for  human  progress  than  those  of  any  like  period  in 
human  history.  There  are  few  whose  eyes  are  now  holden  as 
they  used  to  be,  as  to  the  surpassing  place  in  the  history  of 
culture  of  the  last  three  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
Personally  the  author  is  convinced,  however,  that  only  a 
beginning  of  proper  appreciation  has  come  as  yet,  and  he  feels 
that  the  solution  of  many  problems  that  are  vexing  the  modern 
world,  especially  in  the  social  order,  are  to  be  found  in  these 
much  misunderstood  ages,  and  above  all  in  that  culmination 
of  medieval  progress — the  period  from  1200  to  1300. 

The  subject  was  originally  taken  up  as  a  series  of  lectures 
in  the  extension  course  of  the  Catholic  Summer  School,  as 
given  each  year  in  I^ent  and  Advent  at  the  Catholic  Club,  New 
York  City.  Portions  of  the  material  were  subsequently  used 
in  lectures  in  many  cities  in  this  country  from  Portland,  Me. , 
to  Portland,  Ore.,  St.  Paul,  Minn.,  to  New  Orleans,  I*.  The 
subject  was  treated  in  extenso  for  the  Brooklyn  Institute  of 
Arts  and  Sciences  in  1906,  after  which  publication  was 
suggested. 

The  author  does  not  flatter  himself  that  the  book  adequately 
represents  the  great  period  which  it  claims  to  present.  The 
subject  has  been  the  central  idea  of  studies  in  leisure  moments 
for  a  dozen  years,  and  during  many  wanderings  in  Europe, 
but  there  will  doubtless  prove  to  be  errors  in  detail,  for  which 
the  author  would  crave  the  indulgence  of  more  serious  students 


PREFACE.  vii 

of  history.  The  original  form  in  which  the  material  was  cast 
has  influenced  the  style  to  some  extent,  and  has  made  the 
book  more  wordy  than  it  would  otherwise  have  been,  and 
has  been  the  cause  of  certain  repetitions  that  appear  more 
striking  in  print  than  they  seemed  in  manuscript.  There  were 
what  seemed  good  reasons  for  not  delaying  publication,  how- 
ever, and  leisure  for  further  work  at  it,  instead  of  growing, 
was  becoming  more  scant.  It  is  intrusted  to  the  tender  mer- 
cies of  critics,  then,  and  the  benevolent  reader,  if  he  still  may 
be  appealed  to,  for  the  sake  of  the  ideas  it  contains,  in  spite  of 
their  inadequate  expression. 


PREFACE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY. 
(SECOND  EDITION). 

Representing  a  digest  of  Summer  School  lectures,  this 
work  was  meant  for  popular  reading.  For  this  reason  long 
citations  of  authorities  and  the  filling  up  of  the  bottom  of 
pages  with  notes  was  deliberately  avoided.  It  has  seemed 
advisable  in  the  second  edition,  however,  to  present  in  an 
appendix  some  authoritative  opinions  that  will  enable  readers 
to  see  that  many  of  the  author's  ideas  which  may  appear  par- 
adoxical are  shared  by  men  who  have  devoted  the  better  part 
of  their  lives  to  the  special  study  of  the  questions  on  which 
their  opinions  are  quoted  and  who,  if  any,  know  whereof  they 
speak.  It  has  not  been  difficult  to  quote  a  wide  range  of 
scholarly  writers  who  are  in  thorough  agreement  with  even  the 
most  startling  paradoxes  of  the  book,  the  expressions  that 
have  been  most  questioned  by  critics  and  that  have  caused 
some  hesitation  even  among  benevolent  readers.  Besides 
these  additions,  some  corrections  and  revisions  have  been 
made  in  the  body  of  the  text. 

NEW  YORK,  April,  1909. 


PREFACE. 

(GEORGETOWN  UNIVERSITY  EDITION). 

This  third  edition  is  published  under  the  patronage  of  George- 
town University  as  a  slight  token  of  appreciation  for  the  de- 
gree of  Doctor  of  Letters,  conferred  on  the  author  for  this 
work  at  the  last  Commencement.  This  issue  has  been  enlarged 
by  the  addition  of  many  illustrations  selected  to  bring  out  the 
fact  that  all  the  various  parts  of  Europe  shared  in  the  achieve- 
ments of  the  time  and  by  an  appendix  containing  in  compen- 
dium Twenty-Six  Chapters  that  Might  Have  Been.  Each  of 
these  brief  sketches  could  easily  have  been  extended  to  the 
average  length  of  the  original  chapters.  It  was  impossible  to 
use  all  the  material  that  was  gathered.  These  hints  of  further 
sources  are  now  appended  so  as  to  afford  suggestions  for  study 
to  those  who  may  care  to  follow  up  the  idea  of  the  Thirteenth 
as  The  Greatest  of  Centuries,  that  is,  of  that  period  in  human 
existence  when  men's  thoughts  on  all  the  important  human  in- 
terests were  profoundly  valuable  for  future  generations  and 
their  accomplishments  models  for  all  the  after  time. 


CONTENTS.  xv 

The  marvellous  stained  glass  of  the  period, — Lincoln,  York,  Char- 
tres,  Bourges.  Storied  windows  and  their  teachings.  Beauty  and 
utility  in  the  arts.  Magnificent  needlework,  the  Cope  of  Ascoli. 
The  Cathedral  as  an  educator.  The  Great  Stone  Book,  which  he 
who  ran  must  read.  Symbolism  of  the  Cathedrals.  The  great 
abbeys,  the  monasteries,  municipal  and  domestic  architecture  of  the 
century.  Furniture  and  decorations.  Ruskin  on  Giotto's  tower.  96 

CHAPTER  VII 

ARTS  AND  CRAFTS — GREAT  TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS. 

Solution  of  problems  of  social  unrest.  Blessed  is  the  man  who 
has  found  his  work.  Merrie  England.  The  workman's  pleasure 
in  his  work.  Influence  of  the  Church  in  the  arts  and  crafts  move- 
ment. Rivalry  in  building  the  Cathedrals.  Organization  of  tech- 
nical instruction.  Correction  of  optical  illusions.  The  village 
blacksmith  and  carpenter.  Comparative  perfection  of  the  work 
done  then  and  now.  The  trade  guilds  and  the  training  of  work- 
men. The  system  of  instruction,  apprentice,  journeyman,  master. 
The  masterpiece.  Social  co-operation  and  fraternity.  Mystery 
plays  and  social  education 124 

CHAPTER  VIII 

GREAT  ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING. 

Rise  of  painting.  Franciscans  and  Dominicans,  patrons  of 
art.  St.  Francis'  return  to  nature,  the  incentive  of  art.  Cimabue's 
Madonna.  Gaddi,  Guido,  Ugolino  and  Duccio  of  Siena.  Berling- 
hieri  of  Lucca,  Giunta  of  Pisa.  Giotto  the  master.  His  work  at 
Assisi,  Verona,  Naples,  Rome.  Marvellous  universal  appreciation 
of  art.  Contrast  with  other  times.  False  notions  with  regard  to 
Gothic  art.  Sadness  not  a  characteristic.  The  beauty  of  the  human 
form  divine.  138 


CHAPTER  IX 

LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN. 

Monastic  regulations  for  collecting  and  lending  books.  Library 
rules.  Circulating  libraries.  The  Abbey  of  St.  Victor,  the  Sor- 
bonne,  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  and  Notre  Dame.  Fines  for  mis- 
use of  books.  Library  catalogues.  Library  of  La  Ste.  Chapelle. 
First  medical  library  at  the  Hotel  Dieu.  How  books  were  collected. 
Exchange  of  books.  Special  revenue  for  the  libraries  in  the  mon- 
asteries. Book  collecting  and  bequests  by  ecclesiastics.  Cost  of 
books.  Franciscan  and  Dominican  libraries.  Richard  De  Bury's 


xvi  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Philobiblon.  How  books  were  valued.  Richard  a  typical  bookman. 
His  place  in  history.  Illuminated  books.  The  most  interesting 
and  original  of  all  time  (Humphreys)..  St.  Louis'  beautiful  books. 

149 

CHAPTER  X 

THE   CID,   THE    HOLY   GRAIL,   THE    NIBELUNGEN. 

Literature  equal  to  accomplishment  in  other  lines.  Archi- 
tecture and  literature,  and  the  expression  of  national  feelings.  Na- 
tional epics  of  three  western-most  nations  informed  within  the 
same  half  century.  The  Cid,  its  unity  of  authorship  and  action. 
Martial  interest  and  spirited  style.  Tender  domestic  scenes.  Psy- 
chological analysis.  Walter  Mapes,  and  the  Arthur  Legends.  Au- 
thorship and  place  in  literature.  Launcelot  one  of  the  greatest 
heroes  ever  invented.  Unity  of  authorship  of  Nibelungen.  Place 
in  literature.  Modern  interest.  Influence  of  these  epics  on  national 
poetry.  166 


CHAPTER  XI 

MEISTERSINGERS,    MINNESINGERS,    TROUVERES,    TROUBADOURS. 

A  great  century  of  song.  The  high  character  of  women,  as 
represented  in  these  songs.  Nature-poetry,  and  love.  Walter  Von 
der  Vogelweide,  Hartman  Von  Aue,  Wolfram  Von  Eschenbach, 
Conrad  Von  Kirchberg.  The  Troubadours  and  their  love  songs. 
Selections  from  Arnaud  de  Marveil,  Arnaud  Daniel,  Bertrand  de 
Born,  William  of  St.  Gregory,  and  Peyrols.  .  .  .  182 


CHAPTER  XII 

GREAT   LATIN    HYMNS. 

Greatest  poetic  bequest  of  the  period.  Place  of  rhyme  in 
Latin.  Latin  hymns  the  first  native  poetry  in  the  language.  In- 
fluence of  their  charm  of  rhyme  and  rhythm  on  the  developing 
languages  of  Europe.  Supremacy  of  the  Dies  Irae,  its  many  ad- 
mirers. Other  surpassing  Latin  Hymns.  Celtic  origin  of  rhyme. 
The  Stabat  Mater,  some  translations.  Critical  faculty  in  hymn 
selection.  Jerusalem  the  Golden,  its  place  in  Christian  song. 
Aquinas'  hymn,  the  Pange  Lingua,  its  popularity.  Musical  expres- 
sion of  feeling  and  plain  chant.  The  best  examples  from  this 
period.  Invention  of  part  music,  its  adaptation  and  development 
in  popular  music. 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

CHAPTER  XIII 

THE   THREE    MOST    READ    BOOKS. 

A  generation  and  the  books  it  reads.  Reynard  the  Fox,  the 
Golden  Legend,  and  the  Romance  of  the  Rose.  "Reynard  the 
most  profoundly  humorous  book  ever  written."  Powers  of  the 
author  as  observer.  Besides  Gulliver's  Travels,  Don  Quixote 
and  Pilgrim's  Progress.  Its  relations  to  Uncle  Remus  and  many 
other  animal  stories.  The  place  of  the  Golden  Legend  in  lit- 
erature. Longfellow's  use  of  it.  The  Romance  of  the  Rose  for 
three  centuries  the  most  read  book  in  Europe.  The  answer  to 
the  charge  of  dullness.  The  Rose  as  a  commentary  on  the  morn- 
ing paper.  The  abuse  of  wealth  as  the  poet  saw  it  in  the  Thir- 
teenth Century.  Praise  of  "poverty  light  heart  and  gay."  .  209 

CHAPTER  XIV 

SOME    THIRTEENTH    CENTURY    PROSE. 

Prose  of  the  century  as  great  as  the  poetry.  Medieval  Latin 
unappreciated  but  eminently  expressive.  The  prose  style,  simple, 
direct  and  nicely  accurate.  Saintsbury's  opinion  as  to  the  influence 
on  modern  literature  of  the  scholastic  philosophers'  style.  The 
chroniclers  and  the  modern  war  correspondent.  Villehardouin, 
Jocelyn  of  Brakelond,  Joinville,  Matthew  of  Paris.  Vincent  of 
Beauvais  and  the  first  encyclopedia.  Pagel's  opinion  of  Vincent's 
style.  Durandus'  famous  work  on  symbolism.  Examples  of  his 
style.  The  Scriptures  as  the  basis  of  style 221 

CHAPTER  XV 

f  ORIGIN  OF  DRAMA. 

St.  Francis  and  the  first  nativity  play.  Earlier  mystery  plays. 
Chester  cycle.  Humorous  passages  introduced.  Complete  bible 
story  represented.  Actors'  wages  and  costumes.  Innocent  diver- 
sion and  educational  influence.  Popular  interest.  Everyman  in  our 
own  day.  Comparison  with  the  passion  play  at  Oberammergau. 
The  drama  as  an  important  factor  in  popular  education.  Active  as 
well  as  passive  participation  in  great  poetry.  Anticipation  of  a 
movement  only  just  beginning  again.  .....  238 


CHAPTER  XVI 

FRANCIS,    THE    SAINT— THE    FATHER    OF    THE    RENAISSANCE. 

The  Renaissance,  so-called.     Before  the  Renaissance.     Gothic 
architecture  and  art.     Francis  the  father  of  the  real  Renaissance, 


xviii  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

,  Matthew  Arnold  and  "the  poor  little  man  of  God."  St.  Francis  as 
a  literary  man.  The  canticle  of  the  Sun.  St.  Francis'  career. 
The  simple  life.  Ruskin  on  Francis'  poverty.  St.  Francis  in  the 
last  ten  years.  The  disciples  who  gathered  around  him. 
A  century  of  Franciscans.  The  third  order  of  St.  Francis.  Kings 
and  queens,  nobles  and  scholars  hail  St.  Francis  as  father.  What 
the  religious  orders  accomplished.  St.  Clare  and  the  second 
order 254 

CHAPTER  XVII 

AQUINAS,    THE    SCHOLAR. 

The  nobility  and  education.  Studies  at  Cologne  and  Paris. 
The  distinguished  faculty  of  Paris  in  his  time.  Summa  Contra 
Gentiles.  Pope  Leo  XIII.  and  Aquinas'  teaching.  Foundations 
of  Christian  apologetics.  Characteristic  passages  from  Aquinas. 
Necessity  for  revelation  of  God's  existence.  Explanation 
of  Resurrection.  Liberty  in  Aquinas'  writings.  Greatness  of 
Aquinas  and  his  contemporaries  and  the  subsequent  decadence  of 
scholasticism.  Contemporary  appreciation  of  St.  Thomas.  His 
capacity  for  work.  His  sacred  poetry 270 

CHAPTER  XVIII 

LOUIS,  THE   MONARCH. 

The  greatest  of  rulers.     His  relations  as  a  son,  as  a  husband, 

s  a  father.    His  passion  for  justice.    Interest  in  education,  in  books, 

n  the  encyclopedia.     Tribute  of  Voltaire.     Guizot's  praise.     The 

ighting  of  wrongs.     Letters  to  his  son.    Affection  for  his  children. 

Regard  for  monks.     Would  have  his  children   enter  monasteries. 

Treatment  of  the  poor.    Attitude  towards  lepers.     One  of  nature's 

noblemen.     Louis  and  the  crusades.     Bishop  Stubbs,  on  the  real 

meaning  of  the  crusades.     Louis'  interest  in  the  crusades  not  a 

stigma,  but  an  added  reason  for  praise.    .  ...        289 

CHAPTER  XIX 

DANTE,  THE  POET. 

Dante  not  a  solitary  phenomenon.  A  Troubadour.  His  minor 
poems  and  prose  works.  His  wonderful  Sonnets.  The  growth  of 
appreciation  for  him.  Italian  art,  great  as  it  kept  nearer  to 
Dante.  Tributes  from  Italy's  greatest  literary  men.  Michael 
Angelo's  sonnets  to  him.  A  world  poet.  English  admira- 
tion old  and  new.  Tributes  of  the  two  great  English 
Cardinals.  Dean  Church's  Essay.  Ruskin  on  the  Grotesque  on 


CONTENTS.  xix 

Dante.  German  critical  appreciation.  Humboldt's  tribute.  Ameri- 
ca's burden  of  praise.  Dante  and  the  modern  thinker.  His 
wonderful  powers  of  observation.  Comparison  with  Milton.  His 
place  as  one  of  the  supreme  poets  of  all  times.  A  type  of  the 
century 300 


CHAPTER  XX 

THE  WOMEN   OF  THE  CENTURY. 

Women  of  the  century  worthy  of  the  great  period.  St. 
Clare  of  Assisi's  place  in  history.  Happiness.  The  supper  at  the 
Portiuncula.  Peace,  in  the  cloister  and  woman's  influence.  Equality 
of  sexes  in  the  religious  orders.  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  the 
first  settlement  worker.  "Dear  St.  Elizabeth's"  influence  on  women 
since  her  time.  Blanche  of  Castile  as  Queen  and  mother.  Her 
influence  as  a  ruler.  Difficulties  with  her  daughter-in-law.  Mabel 
Rich,  the  London  tradesman's  wife,  and  her  sons.  Isabella 
Countess  of  Arundel  and  courageous  womanly  dignity.  Women's 
work  in  the  century.  Service  of  the  sick.  Co-education  in  Italy. 
Reason  for  absence  in  France  and  England.  Women  professors 
at  Italian  universities.  Feminine  education  four  times  in  history. 
Reasons  for  decline.  Women  in  the  literature  of  the  century.  The 
high  place  accorded  them  by  the  poets  of  every  country.  Dante's 
tribute  to  their  charm  without  a  hint  of  the  physical.  .  319 

CHAPTER  XXI 

CITY    HOSPITALS — ORGANIZED    CHARITY. 

Charity  occupied  a  co-ordinate  place  to  education.  Pope  Inno- 
cent III.  organized  both.  His  foundations  of  the  City  hospitals  of 
the  world,  the  Santo  Spirito  at  Rome  the  model.  Rise  of  hospitals 
in  every  country,  Virchow's  tribute  to  Innocent  III.  Care  for 
lepers  in  special  hospitals  and  eradication  of  this  disease.  The 
meaning  of  this  for  the  modern  time  and  tuberculosis.  Special 
institutions  for  erysipelas  which  prevented  the  spread  of  this 
disease.  The  organization  of  charity.  The  monasteries  and  the 
people.  The  freeing  of  prisoners  held  in  slavery.  Two  famous 
orders  for  this  purpose 337 

CHAPTER  XXII 

GREAT  ORIGINS   IN  LAW. 

Legal  origins  most  surprising  feature  of  the  century.  Signifi- 
cance of  Magna  Charta.  Excerpts  that  show  its  character.  The 
church,  widows  and  orphans,  common  pleas,  international  law,  no 


xx  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tax  without  consent,  rights  of  freemen.  Development  of  meaning 
as  time  and  progress  demanded  it.  Bracton's  digest  of  the  common 
law.  Edward  I.  the  English  Justinian.  Simon  de  Montfort.  Real 
estate  laws.  350 


XXIII 

JUSTICE    AND    LEGAL    DEVELOPMENT. 

Legal  origins  in  other  countries  besides  England.  Montalembert 
and  France.  St.  Louis  and  the  enforcement  of  law.  Fehmic  courts 
of  Germany  and  our  vigilance  committees.  Andrew  II.,  and  the 
"Golden  Bull,  that  legalized  anarchy"  in  Hungary.  Laws  of  Poland. 
The  Popes  and  legal  codification;  Innocent  III.,  Gregory  IX. 
Commentaries  on  law  at  the  universities.  Pope  Boniface  VIII, 
the  canonist.  Origin  of  "no  taxation  without  representation."  364 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

DEMOCRACY,    CHRISTIAN     SOCIALISM    AND    NATIONALITY. 

Origins  in  popular  self-government.  Representation  in  the 
governing  body.  German  free  cities.  Swiss  declaration  of  inde- 
pendence. Christian  socialism  and  "the  three  eights."  Saturday 
half-holiday,  and  the  vigils  of  holy-days.  Christian  fraternity  and 
the  guilds.  Organization  of  charity.  The  guild  merchant  and 
fraternal  solidarity.  The  guild  of  the  Holy  Cross,  Stratford,  and 
its  nlace  in  town  government  and  education.  Progress  of  democ- 
racy. How  the  crusades  strengthened  the  democratic  spirit.  Their 
place  in  the  history  of  human  liberty  and  of  nationality.  .  375 


CHAPTER  XXV 

GREAT   EXPLORERS   AND  .THE   FOUNDATION   OF   GEOGRAPHY. 

Geography's  wonderful  development.  Modern  problems.  Thibet 
explored,  Lhasa  entered.  This  perhaps  the  greatest  triumph 
of  the  century.  Marco  Polo's  travels.  Former  mistrust  now  un- 
stinted admiration.  Striking  observations  of  Polo.  John 
of  Carpini's  travels  in  the  Near  East.  Colonel  Yule  on  the  Book 
of  the  Tartars.  Friar  William  of  Rubruquis'  travels  in  Tartary. 
Anticipations  of  modern  opinions  as  to  language.  Some  details 
of  description.  Friar  Odoric  and  his  Irish  companion.  The  Pis. 
monstratensian  Hayton.  Franciscan  missionary  zeal  supplied  for 
our  geographical  societies:  Idle  monks!  ....  392 


CONTENTS.  xxi 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF   MODERN   COMMERCE. 

This  is  the  most  interesting  phase  for  our  generation.  Hanseatic 
League  and  obscurity  of  its  origin.  League  of  Lombard  cities  and  effect 
of  crusades.  Importance  of  Hansa.  Enforcement  of  its  decrees.  Con- 
federation of  cities  from  England  to  Central  Russia.  Surprising  great- 
ness of  the  cities.  Beginnings  of  international  law.  Commerce  and 
peace.  Origins  of  coast  regulation.  Fraternal  initiations  and  their 
equivalents  in  the  aftertime.  Origins  in  hazing.  Commerce  and  lib- 
erty. Fostering  of  democracy.  International  comity.  .  .  415 

APPENDIX  I 
So-called    history 430 

APPENDIX  II 

TWENTY-SIX  CHAPTERS  THAT   MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN. 

I.  America  in  the  Thirteenth  Century — Papal  documents.  II.  A 
representative  upper  house.  III.  The  parish,  and  training  in  citizen- 
ship. IV.  The  chance  to  rise.  V.  Insurance — fire,  marine,  robbery, 
against  injustice.  VI.  Old  age  pensions,  disability  wages.  VII.  Ways 
and  means  of  charity — organized  charity.  VIII.  Scientific  universities, 
investigation,  writing.  IX.  Medical  education  and  high  professional 
status.  X.  Magnetism — first  perpetual  motion  inventor — the  North 
Pole.  XL  Biological  theories  —  evolution,  recapitulation.  XII.  The 
Pope  of  the  century — Innocent  III.  XIII.  International  arbitration. 
XIV.  Bible  revision.  XV.  Fiction  of  the  century.  XVI.  Great  ora- 
tors. XVII.  Great  beginnings  of  English  literature.  XVIII.  Origins 
of  music.  XIX.  Refinement  and  table  manners.  XX.  Textiles,  satins, 
brocades,  laces,  needlework.  XXI.  Glass-making.  XXII.  Inj 

XXIII.  Industry    and    trade.     XXIV.  

tensive  farming.     XXVI.  Cartography .  and  the 
— Hereford  Map  of  the  W~ 


CRITICI 


APPENDIX 


COMMENTS,  DOCUMENTS. 

Human  progress.  The  centifry  of  origins.  Education.  Technical 
education  of  the  masses.  How  it  all  stopped.  Comfort  and  poverty. 
Comfort  and  happiness.-  Comfort  and  health.  Hygiene.  Wages 
and  the  coj^  ^^ing  people.  Interest  and  loans.  The 

lowest  of  centurtps.    .          .  Af\A 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 

1.  Le  Beau  Dieu   (Amiens) Frontispiece 

2.  Virgin  with  the  Divine  Child  (Mosaic,  St.  Mark's, 

Venice)          Opp.  page      5 

3.  Pulpit   (N.  Pisano,  Siena) "  8 

4.  Archangel    Michael    (Giovanni    Pisano,    Pisa)       .      "  "  13 

5.  Christ    (Andrea   Pisano,   Florence)    .  t            .             "  "  13 

6.  Sta.  Reparata  (Andrea  Pisano,  Florence)       .             "  "  13 
J.  Paschal  Candlestick  (Baptistery,  Florence)       .     .      "  "        15 

8.  Reliquary    (Cathedral  Orvieto,  Ugolino  di  Vieri)      "  "  15 

9.  The    Church    in    Symbol    (Paris)       ....  On  "  17 

10.  Adoration  of  Magi  (Pulpit,  Siena,  Nic.  Pisano)   .  Opp.  "  22 

11.  Cathedral    (Lincoln) "  "  28 

12.  Cathedral    (York) "  "  28 

13.  Cloister  of  St.  John  Lateran   (Rome)                     .      "  "  32 

14.  Jacques  Cceur's  House   (Bourges)      .       .       .       .  On  "  32 

15.  Rathhaus    (Tangermiinde) Opp.  "  42 

16.  Cathedral    (Hereford) "  "  44 

17.  Cathedral    (York,    East) "  "  44 

18.  Single  Flying  Buttress On  "  57 

19.  Christ  Driving  Out  Money  Changers  (Giotto)       .  Opp.  "  64 

20.  Bride   from   Marriage   of   Cana    (Giotto)       .       .  64 

21.  Head    (Mosaic,    St.    Mark's,    Venice)       .       .       .      "  "  64 

22.  Head  of  Blessed  Virgin  Annunciation     ..--."*  64 

23.  Petrarch  ) 

'24*-.  Dante       >      Portraits  by  Benozzo  Gozzoli     .             "  "        71 

25.  Giotto      ) 

2$.  Screen    (Hereford)          "  "        87 

27.  Doorway    of    Sacristy    (Bourges)       ....""  87 

28.  Double    Flying   Buttress                On  95 

29.  Angel    Choir    (Lincoln)         .          SEA-%-       •       •  Opp.  '  96 

30.  Cathedral    (Amiens)        .  105 

31.  Cathedral    (Rheims)        . '                           >   .  107 

32.  Cloister  of  St.  Paul's   (without  the  walls   Rome)      "  112 

33.  Cathedral    (Bourges)               .  *  116 

34.  Cathedral   (Chartres)       .       .       .-,r?  116 

35.  Durham   Castle  and  Cathedral     .  'i&qj$  I2° 

36.  King   John's    Castle    (Limerick)  120 

37.  Campanile    (Giotto)                              .'^  122 

38.  Palazzo    Vecchio    (Florence)       ....  "122 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS.  xxiii 

39.  Fountain    (Perugia)     [Town    Pump]       .       .       .  Opp. page  126 

40.  Lavatoio    (Todi)    [Public    Wash-House]               .      "  126 

41.  Reliquary   (Limoges  Museo,  Florence)                         "  "  133 

42.  Crucifix   (Duomo,  Siena) "  "  133 

43.  Madonna,  Cimabue  (Rucellai  Chapel,  Santa  Maria 

Novella,    Florence) "  "  136 

44.  St.    Francis'     Marriage    with     Poverty     (Giotto, 

Assisi) "  «  144 

45.  Espousal  of  St.  Catherine   (Gaddi,  XIII.  Century 

pupil,   Perugia) "  "  147 

46.  Group  from  Visitation   (Rheims)        .       .       .       .  On  148 

47.  Monument  of  Cardinal  de  Bray  (Arnolfo)     .       .  Opp.  "  156 

48.  Decoration  (XIII.  Cent.  Psalter  MSS.)   .       .       .  On  "  165 

49.  Santa    Maria     Sopra     Minerva     (Rome's     Gothic 

Cathedral) Opp.  "  168 

50.  Crozier   (obverse  and  reverse) On  "  181 

51.  Tower   of   Scaligers "  "  193 

52.  St.     Francis     Prophesies     the     Death    of    Celano 

(Giotto,  Upper  Ch.,  Assisi) Opp.  "  197 

53-    Virgin    and    Child     (Pisa,    Campo    Santo,    Giov. 

Pisano)           "  "  200 

54.  Entombment    of    Blessed    Virgin        ....  On  "  208 

55.  St.  Christopher  (alto  relievo,  Venice)       .       .       .  Opp.  "  214 

56.  Madonna   and   Child    (Giov.   Pisano,    Padua)       .      "  "  214 

57.  Tower   (Lincoln) On  "  220 

58.  Gate,   Florence    (N.   Pisano) Opp.  "  226 

59.  Ponte  Alle  Grazie   (Lapo) "  226 

60.  Church  and  Cloisters,   San  Antonio    (Padua)       .      "  "  232 

61.  St.  Catherine's   (Liibeck) "  "  232 

62.  Stone  Carving   (Paris) On  "  237 

63.  The  First   Nativity   Play    (Giotto,  Upper   Church 

of  Assisi) Opp.  "  240 

64.  Palazzo  Buondelmonti  (Florence)                                  "  248 

65.  Palazzo   Tolomei    (Siena) "  "  248 

66.  Capital  (Lincoln) On  "  253 

67.  The  Glorification  of   St.   Francis    (Giotto,  Lower 

Church  of  Assisi) Opp.  "  256 

68.  St.   Francis    (Church  of  the   Frari,   Venice,   Nic. 

Pisano)           "  "  261 

69.  St.  Clare         } 

70.  St.  Louis        [•  Three   Franciscans    (Giotto)         .      "  "  264 

71.  St.  Elizabeth  ) 

72.  Side  Capital   (Lincoln) On  "  269 

73.  Notre  Dame   (Paris) Opp.  '  290 

74.  La    Sainte    Chapelle    (Paris) "  "  294 

75.  Cathedral    (Orvieto) "  294 


xxiv  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

76.  Apostle    (la    Sainte    Chapelle,    Paris)       .       .       .  Opp.  page  296 

77.  Decoration   (Queen  Mary's  Psalter,  XIII.  Century 

MS.) On  "  299 

78.  Portrait  of  Dante   (Giotto,  in  the  Bargello,  Flor- 

ence)         Opp.  "  300 

79.  Torre  del  Fame  (Dante,  Pisa)     .       .       .       .       .      "  "  306 

80.  Palazzo  Pretorio    (Todi) "  "  306 

81.  Angel    (Rheims) On  "  318 

82.  St.    Clare    Bids    the    Dead    St.    Francis    Good-bye 

(Giotto,  Up.   Ch.   Assisi) Opp.  "  320 

83.  Church   (Doberan,  Germany) "  "  322 

84.  San  Damiano    (Assisi) "  "  322 

85.  St.  Elizabeth's  Cathedral   (Marburg)        .       .       .      "  "  325 

86.  Marriage  of  the  Blessed  Virgin    (Giotto,  Padua)      "  "  328 

87.  Mosaic   (St.  Mark's,  Venice,  1220)     ....""  333 

88.  Stone  Carving   (Amiens) On  "  336 

89.  Hospital  of  the  Holy  Ghost   (Liibeck)     .       .       .    Opp.  "  341 

90.  Charity    (Giotto) "  347 

91.  Fortitude    (Giotto)           "  "  347 

92.  Hope    (Giotto)  .       . "  "347 

93.  Hospital  Interior On  "  349 

94.  Tower    (Marburg)            "  "  363 

95.  City  Gate   (Neubrandenburg) Opp.  "  368 

96.  Rathhaus  (Stralsund) "  368 

97.  Portrait  of  Pope  Boniface  VIII.   (Giotto,  Rome)      "  "  372 

98.  Decoration   (XIII.  Cent.  Psalter)        .       .       .       .  On  "  374 

99.  Doorway    (Lincoln) Opp.  "  381 

100.  Nave    (Durham) "  "  381 

101.  Broken     Arch     (St.     Mary's,    York,     Climax     of 

Gothic)           "  "  381 

102.  Animals   from  Bestiarium    (XIII.  Cent.   MS.)       .  On  "  391 

103.  Door    of    Giotto's    Tower    (Florence)       .       .       .   Opp.  '  405 

104.  Principal   Door  of  Baptistery    (Pisa)                      .      "  "  405 

105.  Palazzo  dei  Consoli  (Gubbio) "  "  417 

106.  Palazzo    Zabarella    (Padua) "  417 

107.  Rathhaus    (Liibeck)           "  "  422 

108.  City 'Gate    (Neubrandenburg) "  426 

109.  Minster    (Chorin,    Germany) 426 

no.  Hinge  from  Schlestadt           On  "  429 

in.  Portion   of   Letter   of    Innocent   III.,    Mentioning 

Greenland "  "  433 

112.  Double    Pivoted    Compass    Needle      ....""  441 

113.  Peregrinus'    Compass "  "  442- 

114.  Portion  of  MS.  of  Ormulum      ..,..""  450 

115.  Key  of  Map  of  World  (Hereford)    ....""  461 

116.  Map    of    World    (Hereford)       ,       .       ,       .    , .  Opp.  "  463 


I 
INTRODUCTION 

THE  THIRTEENTH,  THE  GREATEST  OF 
CENTURIES 

It  cannot  but  seem  a  paradox  to  say  that  the  Thirteenth  was 
the  greatest  of  centuries.  To  most  people  the  idea  will  appear 
at  once  so  preposterous  that  they  may  not  even  care  to  con- 
sider it.  A  certain  number,  of  course,  will  have  their  curiosity 
piqued  by  the  thought  that  anyone  should  evolve  so  curious  a 
notion.  Either  of  these  attitudes  of  mind  will  yield  at  once  to 
a  more  properly  receptive  mood  if  it  is  recalled  that  the  Thir- 
teenth is  the  century  of  the  Gothic  cathedrals,  of  the  founda- 
tion of  the  university,  of  the  signing  of  Magna  Charta, 
and  of  the  origin  of  representative  government  with  something 
like  constitutional  guarantees  throughout  the  west  of  Europe. 
The'  cathedrals  represent  a  development  in  the  arts  that  has 
probably  never  been  equaled  either  before  or  since.  The  uni- 
versity was  a  definite  creation  of  these  generations  that  has 
lived  and  maintained  its  usefulness  practically  in  the  same 
form  in  which  it  was  then  cast  for  the  seven  centuries  ever 
since.  The  foundation  stones  of  modern  liberties  are  to  be 
found  in  the  documents  which  for  the  first  time  declared  the 
rights  of  man  during  this  precious  period. 

A  little  consideration  of  the  men  who,  at  this  period,  lived 
lives  of  undying  influence  on  mankind,  will  still  further  attract 
the  attention  of  those  who  have  not  usually  grouped  these 
great  characters  together.  Just  before  the  century  opened, 
three  great  rulers  died  at  the  height  of  their  influence.  They 
are  still  and  will  always  be  the  subject  of  men's  thoughts  and 
of  literature.  They  were  Frederick  Barbarossa,  Saladin,  and 
Richard  Cceur  De  Lion.  They  formed  but  a  suggestive  pre- 
lude of  what  was  to  come  in  the  following  century,  when  such 


V 


2  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

great  monarchs  as  St.  Louis  of  France,  Stf  Ferdinand  of 
Spain,  Alfonso  the  Wise,  of  Castile,  Frederick  II  of  Germany, 
Edward  I,  the  English  Justinian,  Rudolph  of  Hapsbnrg,  whose 
descendants  still  rule  in  Austria,  and  Robert  Bruce,  occupied 
the  thrones  of  Europe.  Was  it  by  chance  or  Providence  that 
the  same  century  saw  the  rise  of  and  the  beginning  of  the  fall 
of  that  great  Eastern  monarchy  which  had  been  created  by  the 
genius  for  conquest  of  Jenghiz  Khan,  the  Tatar  warrior,  who 
ruled  over  all  the  Eastern  world  from  beyond  what  are  now  the 
western  confines  of  Russia,  Poland,  and  Hungary,  into  and  in- 
cluding what  we  now  call  China. 

But  the  thrones  of  Europe  and  of  Asia  did  not  monopolize 
the  great  men  of  the  time.  The  Thirteenth  Century  claims  such 
wonderful  churchmen  as  St. Francis  and  St.  Dominic,  and  while 
it  has  only  the  influence  of  St.  Hugh  of  Lincoln,  who  died  just 
as  it  began,  it  can  be  proud  of  St.  Edmund  of  Canterbury, 
Stephen  Langton,  and  Robert  Crosseteste,  all  men  whose  place 
in  history  is  due  to  what  they  did  for  their  people,  and  such 
magnificent  women  as  Queen  Blanche  of  Castile,  St.  Clare  of 
Assisi,  and  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary.  The  century  opened 
with  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Popes  on  the  throne,  Innocent 
III,  and  it  closed  with  the  most  misunderstood  of  Popes,  who 
is  in  spite  of  this  one  of  the  worthiest  successors  of  Peter,  Boni- 
face VIII.  During  the  century  there  had  been  such  men  as 
Honorius  IV,  the  Patron  of  Learning,  Gregory  IX,  to  whom 
Canon  Law  owes  so  much,  and  John  XXI,  who  had  been  fam- 
ous as  a  scientist  before  becoming  Pope.  There  are  such 
scholars  as  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  Albertus  Magnus,  Roger 
Bacon,  St.  Bonaventure,  Duns  Scotus,  Raymond  Lully,  Vincent 
of  Beauvais,  and  Alexander  of  Hales,  and  such  patrons  of 
learning  as  Robert  of  Sorbonne,  and  the  founders  of  nearly 
twenty  universities.  There  were  such  artists  as  Gaddi,  Cima- 
bue,  and  above  all  Giotto,  and  such  literary  men  as  the  authors 
of  the  Arthur  Legends  and  the  Nibelungen,  the  Meistersingers, 
the  Minnesingers,  the  Troubadours,  and  Trouveres,  and  above 
all  Dante,  who  is  universally  considered  now  to  be  one  of  the 
greatest  literary  men  of  all  times,  but  who  was  not,  as  is  so  often 
thought  and  said,  a  solitary  phenomenon  in  the  period,  but  only 
the  culmination  of  a  great  literary  movement  that  had  to  have 


INTRODUCTION.  3 

some  such  supreme  expression  of  itself  as  this  in  order  to 
properly  round  out  the  cycle  of  its  existence. 

If  in  addition  it  be  said  that  this  century  saw  the  birth  of  the 
democratic  spirit  in  many  different  ways  in  the  various  coun- 
tries of  Europe,  but  always  in  such  form  that  it  was  never 
quite  to  die  out  again,  the  reasons  for  talking  of  it  as  possibly 
the  greatest  of  centuries  will  be  readily  appreciated  even  by 
those  whose  reading  has  not  given  them  any  preliminary  basis 
of  information  with  regard  to  this  period,  which  has  unfor- 
tunately been  shrouded  from  the  eyes  of  most  people  by  the 
fact,  that  its  place  in  the  midst  of  the  Middle  Ages  would  seem 
to  preclude  all  possibility  of  the  idea  that  it  could  represent 
a  great  phase  of  the  development  of  the  human  intellect  and  its 
esthetic  possibilities. 

There  would  seem  to  be  one  more  or  less  insuperable  objec- 
tion to  the  consideration  of  the  Thirteenth  as  the  greatest  of 
centuries,  and  that  arises  from  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  evolu- 
tion has  consciously  and  unconsciously  tinged  the  thoughts  of 
our  generation  to  such  a  degree,  that  it  seems  almost  impossible 
to  think  of  a  period  so  far  in  the  distant  past  as  having  produced 
results  comparable  with  those  that  naturally  flow  from  the 
heightened  development  of  a  long  subsequent  epoch.  What- 
ever of  truth  there  may  be  in  the  great  theory  of  evolution, 
however,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  no  added  evidence  for 
its  acceptance  can  be  obtained  from  the  intellectual  history  of 
the  human  race.  We  may  be  "the  heirs  of  all  the  ages  in  the 
foremost  files  of  time,"  but  one  thing  is  certain,  that  we  can 
scarcely  hope  to  equal,  and  do  not  at  all  think  of  surpassing, 
some  of  the  great  literary  achievements  of  long  past  ages. 

In  the  things  of  the  spirit  apparently  there  is  very  little,  if 
any,  evolution.  Homer  wrote  nearly  three  thousand  years 
ago  as  supreme  an  expression  of  human  life  in  absolute  literary 
values  as  the  world  has  ever  known,  or,  with  all  reverence  for 
the  future  be  it  said,  is  ever  likely  to  know.  The  great  dra- 
matic poem  Job  emanated  from  a  Hebrew  poet  in  those  earlier 
times,  and  yet,  if  judged  from  the  standpoint  of  mere  litera- 
ture, is  as  surpassing  an  expression  of  human  intelligence  in 
the  presence  of  the  mystery  of  evil  as  has  ever  come  from  the 
mind  of  man.  We  are  no  nearer  the  solution  of  the  problem  of 


4  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

evil  in  life,  though  thousands  of  years  have  passed  and  man 
has  been  much  occupied  with  the  thoughts  that  disturbed  the 
mind  of  the  ruler  of  Moab.  The  Code  of  Hammurrabi,  re- 
cently discovered,  has  shown  very  definitely,  that  men  could 
make  laws  nearly  five  thousand  years  ago  as  well  calculated 
to  correct  human  abuses  as  those  our  legislators  spend  so  much 
time  over  at  present,  and  the  olden  time  laws  were  probably 
quite  as  effective  as  ours  can  hope  to  be,  for  all  our  well  inten- 
tioned  purpose  and  praiseworthy  efforts  at  reform. 

It  used  to  be  a  favorite  expression  of  Virchow,  the  great 
German  pathologist,  who  was,  besides,  however,  the  greatest 
of  living  anthropologists,  that  from  the  history  of  the  human 
race  the  theory  of  evolution  receives  no  confirmation  of  any 
kind.  His  favorite  subject,  the  study  of  skulls,  and  their  con- 
formation in  the  five  thousand  years  through  which  such  re- 
mains could  be  traced,  showred  him  absolutely  no  change.  For 
him  there  had  been  also  no  development  in  the  intellectual 
order  in  human  life  during  the  long  period  of  human  history. 
Of  course  this  is  comparatively  brief  if  the  long  aeons  of  geo- 
logical times  be  considered,  yet  some  development  might  be 
expected  to  manifest  itself  in  the  more  than  two  hundred  gen- 
erations that  have  come  and  gone  since  the  beginning  of 
human  memory.  Perhaps,  then,  the  prejudice  with  regard  to 
evolution  and  its  supposed  effectiveness  in  making  the  men  of 
more  recent  times  superior  to  those  of  the  past,  may  be  con- 
sidered to  have  very  little  weight  as  an  a  priori  objection  to 
the  consideration  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  as  representing  the 
highest  stage  in  human  accomplishment.  So  far  as  scientific 
anthropology  goes  there  is  utter  indifference  as  to  the  period 
that  may  be  selected  as  representing  man  at  his  best. 

To  most  people  the  greater  portion  of  surprise  with  regard 
to  the  assertion  of  the  Thirteenth  as  the  greatest  of  centuries 
will  be  the  fact  that  the  period  thus  picked  out  is  almost  in  the 
heart  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  would  be  not  so  amazing  if  the 
fifth  century  before  Christ,  which  produced  such  marvelous 
accomplishments  in  letters  and  art  and  philosophy  among  the 
Greeks,  was  chosen  as  the  greatest  of  human  epochs.  There 
might  not  even  be  so  much  of  unprep^redness  of  mind  if  that 
supreme  century  of  Roman  History,  from  fifty  years  before 


VIRGIN  WITH   THE    DIVINE  CHILD   (MOSAIC, 
ST.   MARK'S,   VENICE) 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

Christ  to  fifty  years  after,  were  picked  out  for  such  signal  no- 
tice. We  have  grown  accustomed,  however,  to  think  of  the 
Middle  Ages  as  hopelessly  backward  in  the  opportunities  they 
afforded  men  for  the  expression  of  their  intellectual  and  ar- 
tistic faculties,  and  above  all  for  any  development  of  that  hu- 
man liberty  which  means  so  much  for  the  happiness  of  the  race 
and  must  constitute  the  basis  of  any  real  advance  worth  while 
talking  about  in  human  affairs.  It  is  this  that  would  make  the 
Thirteenth  Century  seem  out  of  place  in  any  comparative  study 
for  the  purpose  of  determining  proportionate  epochal  great- 
ness. The  spirit  breathes  where  it  will,  however,  and  there 
was  a  mighty  wind  of  the  spirit  of  human  progress  abroad  in 
that  Thirteenth  Centurv,  whose  effects  usually  miss  proper 
recognition  in  history,  because  people  fail  to  group  together  in 
their  minds  all  the  influences  in  our  modern  life  that  come  to 
us  from  that  precious  period.  All  this  present  volume  pre- 
tends to  do  is  to  gather  these  scattered  details  of  influence  in 
order  to  make  the  age  in  which  they  all  coincided  so  wonder- 
fully, be  properly  appreciated. 

If  we  accept  the  usual  historical  division  which  places  the 
Middle  Ages  during  the  thousand  years  between  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  in  the  Fifth  Century  and  the  fall  of  the  Grecian 
Empire  of  Constantinople,  about  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth, 
the  Thirteenth  Century  must  be  considered  the  culmination  of 
that  middle  age.  It  is  three  centuries  before  the  Renaissance, 
and  to  most  minds  that  magical  word  represents  the  begin- 
ning of  all  that  is  modern,  and  therefore  all  that  is  best,  in  the 
world.  Most  people  forget  entirely  how  much  of  progress 
had  been  made  before  the  so-called  Renaissance,  and  how  many 
great  writers  and  artists  had  been  fostering  the  taste  and  de- 
veloping the  intelligence  of  the  people  of  Italy  long  before  the 
fall  of  Constantinople.  The  Renaissance,  after  all,  means 
only  the  re-birth  of  Greek  ideas  and  ideals,  of  Greek  letters 
and  arts,  into  the  modern  world.  If  this  new  birth  of  Greek 
esthetics  had  not  found  the  soil  thoroughly  prepared  by  the 
fruitful  labor  of  three  centuries  before,  history  would  not 
have  seen  any  such  outburst  of  artistic  and  literary  accom- 
plishments as  actually  came  at  the  end  of  the  Fifteenth  and 
during  the  Sixteenth  centuries. 


6  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

In  taking  up  the  thesis,  The  Thirteenth  the  Greatest  of 
Centuries,  it  seems  absolutely  necessary  to  define  just  what  is 
meant  by  the  term  great,  in  its  application  to  a  period.  An 
historical  epoch,  most  people  would  concede  at  once,  is  really 
great  just  in  proportion  to  the  happiness  which  it  provides  for 
the  largest  possible  number  of  humanity.  That  period  is 
greatest  that  has  done  most  to  make  men  happy.  Happiness 
consists  in  the  opportunity  to  express  whatever  is  best  in  us, 
and  above  all  to  find  utterance  for  whatever  is  individual. 
An  essential  element  in  it  is  the  opportunity  to  develop  and 
apply  the  intellectual  faculties,  whether  this  be  of  purely  ar- 
tistic or  of  thoroughly  practical  character.  For  such  happi- 
ness the  opportunity  to  rise  above  one's  original  station  is  one 
of  the  necessary  requisites.  Out  of  these  opportunities  there 
comes  such  contentment  as  is  possible  to  man  in  the  imper- 
fect existence  that  is  his  under  present  conditions. 

Almost  as  important  a  quality  in  any  epoch  that  is  to  be 
considered  supremely  great,  is  the  difference  between  the  con- 
dition of  men  at  the  beginning  of  it  and  at  its  conclusion.  The 
period  that  represents  most  progress,  even  though  at  the  end 
uplift  should  not  have  reached  a  degree  equal  to  subsequent 
periods,  must  be  considered  as  having  best  accomplished  its 
duty  to  the  race.  For  purposes  of  comparison  it  is  the  amount  of 
ground  actually  covered  in  a  definite  time,  rather  than  the 
comparative  position  at  the  end  of  it,  that  deserves  to  be  taken 
into  account.  This  would  seem  to  be  a  sort  of  hedging,  as  if 
the  terms  of  the  comparison  of  the  Thirteenth  with  other  cen- 
turies were  to  be  made  more  favorable  by  the  establishment 
of  different  standards.  There  is,  however,  no  need  of  any 
such  makeshift  in  order  to  establish  the  actual  supremacy  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century,  since  it  can  well  afford  to  be  estimated 
on  its  own  merits  alone,  and  without  any  allowances  because 
of  the  stage  of  cultural  development  at  which  it  occurred. 

John  Ruskin  once  said  that  a  proper  estimation  of  the 
accomplishments  of  a  period  in  human  history  can  only  be 
obtained  by  careful  study  of  three  books — The  Book  of  the 
Deeds,  The  Book  of  the  Arts,  and  the  Book  of  the  Words,  of 
the  given  epoch.  The  Thirteenth  Century  may  be  promptly 
ready  for  this  judgment  of  what  it  accomplished  for  men,  of 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

what  it  wrote  for  subsequent  generations,  and  of  the  artistic 
qualities  to  be  found  in  its  art  remains.  In  the  Book  of  the 
Deeds  of  the  century  what  is  especially  important  is  what  was 
accomplished  for  men,  that  is,  what  the  period  did  for  the  edu- 
cation of  the  people,  not  alone  the  classes  but  the  masses,  and 
what  a  precious  heritage  of  liberty  and  of  social  coordination 
it  left  behind.  To  most  people  it  will  appear  at  once  that  if  the 
most  important  chapter  of  Thirteenth  Century  accomplishment 
is  to  be  found  in  the  Book  if  its  Deeds  and  the  deeds  are  to  be 
judged  according  to  the  standard  just  given  of  education  and 
liberty,  then  there  will  be  no  need  to  seek  further,  since  these 
are  words  for  which  it  is  supposed  that  there  is  no  actual 
equivalent  in  human  life  and  history  for  at  least  several  cen- 
turies after  the  close  of  the  Thirteenth. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  it  is  in  this  very  chapter  that 
the  Thirteenth  Century  will  be  found  strongest  in  its  claim  to 
true  greatness.  The  Thirteenth  Century  saw  the  foundation 
of  the  universities  and  their  gradual  development  into  the  insti- 
tutions of  learning  which  we  have  at  the  present  time.  Those 
scholars  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  recognized  that,  for  its  own 
development  and  for  practical  purposes,  the  human  intellect 
can  best  be  trained  along  certain  lines.  For  its  preliminary 
training,  it  seemed  to  them  to  need  what  has  since  come  to  be 
called  the  liberal  arts,  that  is,  a  knowledge  of  certain  languages 
and  of  logic,  as  well  as  a  thorough  consideration  of  the  great 
problems  of  the  relation  of  man  to  his  Creator,  to  his  fellow- 
men,  and  to  the  universe  around  him.  Grammar,  a  much 
wider  subject  than  we  now  include  under  the  term,  and  phil- 
osophy constituted  the  undergraduate  studies  of  the  uni- 
versities of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  For  the  practical  purposes 
of  life,  a  division  of  post-graduate  study  had  to  be  made  so 
as  to  suit  the  life  design  of  each  individual,  and  accordingly 
the  faculties  of  theology,  for  the  training  of  divines ;  of  medi- 
cine, for  the  training  of  physicians ;  and  of  law,  for  the  train- 
ing of  advocates,  came  into  existence. 

We  shall  consider  this  subject  in  more  detail  in  a  subsequent 
chapter,  but  it  will  be  clear  at  once  that  the  university,  as 
organized  by  these  wise  generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
has  come  down  unchanged  to  us  in  the  modern  time.  We 


8  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

still  have  practically  the  same  methods  of  preliminary  train- 
ing and  the  same  division  of  post-graduate  studies.  We 
specialize  to  a  greater  degree  than  they  did,  but  it  must  not 
be  forgotten  that  specialism  was  not  unknown  by  any  means 
in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  though  there  were  fewer  opportu- 
nities for  its  practical  application  to  the  things  of  life.  If  this 
century  had  done  nothing  else  but  create  the  instrument  by 
which  the  human  mind  has  ever  since  been  trained,  it  must  be 
considered  as  deserving  a  place  of  the  very  highest  rank  in  the 
periods  of  human  history. 

It  is,  however,  much  more  for  what  it  accomplished  for  the 
education  of  the  masses  than  for  the  institutions  it  succeeded 
in  developing  for  the  training  of  the  classes,  that  the  Thirteenth 
Century  merits  a  place  in  the  roll  of  fame.  This  declaration 
will  doubtless  seem  utterly  paradoxical  to  the  ordinary  reader 
of  history.  We  are  very  prone  to  consider  that  it  is  only  in  our 
time  that  anything  like  popular  education  has  come  into  exist- 
ence. As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  the  education  afforded 
to  the  people  in  the  little  towns  of  the  Middle  Ages,  rep- 
resents an  ideal  of  educational  uplift  for  the  masses  such  as 
has  never  been  even  distantly  approached  in  succeeding  cen- 
turies. The  Thirteenth  Century  developed  the  greatest  set  of 
technical  schools  that  the  world  has  ever  known.  The  technical 
school  is  supposed  to  be  a  creation  of  the  last  half  century 
at  the  outside.  These  medieval  towns,  however,  during  the 
course  of  the  building  of  their  cathedrals,  of  their  public 
buildings  and  various  magnificent  edifices  of  royalty  and 
for  the  nobility,  succeeded  in  accomplishing  such  artistic  re- 
sults that  the  world  has  ever  since  held  them  in  admiration, 
and  that  this  admiration  has  increased  rather  than  diminished 
with  the  development  of  taste  in  very  recent  years. 

Nearly  every  one  of  the  most  important  towns  of  England 
during  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  erecting  a  cathedral. 
Altogether  some  twenty  cathedrals  remain  as  the  subject  of 
loving  veneration  and  of  frequent  visitation  for  the  modern 
generation.  There  was  intense  rivalry  between  these  vari- 
ous towns.  Each  tried  to  surpass  the  other  in  the  grandeur 
of  its  cathedral  and  auxiliary  buildings.  Instead  of  lending 
workmen  to  one  another  there  was  a  civic  pride  in  accomplish- 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

ing  for  one's  native  town  whatever  was  best.  Each  of  these 
towns,  then,  none  of  which  had  more  than  twenty  thousand  in- 
habitants except  London,  and  even  that  scarcely  more,  had  to 
develop  its  own  artist-artisans  for  itself.  That  they  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  so  demonstrates  a  great  educational  influence 
at  work  in  arts  and  crafts  in  each  of  these  towns.  We 
scarcely  succeed  in  obtaining  such  trained  workmen  in  pro- 
portionately much  fewer  numbers  even  with  the  aid  of  our 
technical  schools,  and  while  these  Thirteenth  Century  people  did 
not  think  of  such  a  term,  it  is  evident  that  they  had  the  real- 
ity and  that  they  were  able  to  develop  artistic  handicraftsmen 
— the  best  the  world  has  ever  known. 

With  all  this  of  education  abroad  in  the  lands,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  great  results  should  have  flowed  from  human 
efforts  and  that  these  should  prove  enduring  even  down  to 
our  own  time.  Accomplishments  of  the  highest  significance 
were  necessarily  bound  up  with  opportunities  for  self-expres- 
sion, so  tempting  and  so  complete,  as  those  provided  for  the 
generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  books  of  the 
Words  as  well  as  of  the  Arts  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  will  be 
found  eminently  interesting,  and  no  period  has  ever  furnished 
so  many  examples  of  wondrous  initiative,  followed  almost  im- 
mediately by  just  as  marvelous  progress  and  eventual  approach 
to  as  near  perfection  as  it  is  perhaps  possible  to  come  in  things 
human.  Ordinarily  literary  origins  are  not  known  with  suf- 
ficient certainty  as  to  dates  for  any  but  the  professional  scholar 
to  realize  the  scope  of  the  century's  literature.  Only  a  very  little 
consideration,  however,  is  needed  to  demonstrate  how  thor- 
oughly representative  of  what  is  most  enduring  in  literary 
expression  in  modern  times,  are  the  works  in  every  country 
that  had  origin  in  this  century. 

There  was  not  a  single  country  in  civilized  Europe  which 
did  not  contribute  its  quota  and  that  of  great  significance  to 
the  literary  movement  of  the  time.  In  Spain  there  came  the 
Cid  and  certain  accompanying  products  of  ballad  poetry  whicb 
form  the  basis  of  the  national  literature  and  are  still  read  not 
only  by  scholars  and  amateurs,  but  even  by  the  people  gener- 
ally, because  of  the  supreme  human  interest  in  them.  In  Eng- 
land, the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  saw  the  putting 


10  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

into  shape  pf  the  Arthur  Legends  in  the  form  in  which  they 
were  to  appeal  most  nearly  to  subsequent  generations.  Walter 
Map's  work  in  these  was,  as  we  shall  see,  one  of  the  great 
literary  accomplishments  of  all  time.  Subsequent  treatments 
of  the  same  subject  are  only  slight  modifications  of  the  theme 
which  he  elaborated,  and  Mallory's  and  Spenser's  and  even 
our  own  Tennyson's  work  derive  their  interest  from  the  hu- 
manly sympathetic  story,  written  so  close  to  the  heart  of  nature 
in  the  Thirteenth  Century  that  it  will  always  prove  attractive. 

In  Germany,  just  at  the  same  time,  the  Nibelungen-Lied  was 
receiving  the  form  in  which  it  was  to  live  as  the  great  National 
epic.  The  Meistersingers  also  were  accomplishing  their 
supreme  work  of  Christianizing  and  modernizing  the  old  Ger- 
man and  Christian  legends  which  were  to  prove  such  a  prec- 
ious heritage  of  interest  for  posterity.  In  the  South  of  Ger- 
many the  Minnesingers  sang  their  tuneful  strains  and  showed 
how  possible  it  was  to  take  the  cruder  language  of  the  North, 
and  pour  forth  as  melodious  hymns  of  praise  to  nature  and 
to  their  beloved  ones  as  in  the  more  fluent  Southern  tongues. 
Most  of  this  was  done  in  the  old  Suabian  high  German  dialect, 
and  the  basis  of  the  modern  German  language  was  thus  laid. 
The  low  German  was  to  prove  the  vehicle  for  the  original  form 
of  the  animal  epic  or  stories  with  regard  to  Reynard,  the  Fox, 
which  were  to  prove  so  popular  throughout  all  of  Europe  for 
all  time  thereafter. 

In  North  France  the  Trouveres  were  accomplishing  a 
similar  work  to  that  of  the  Minnesingers  in  South  Germany, 
but  doing  it  with  an  original  genius,  a  refinement  of  style  char- 
acteristic of  their  nation,  and  a  finish  of  form  that  was  to  im- 
press itself  upon  French  literature  for  all  subsequent  time. 
Here  also  Jean  de  Meun  and  Guillaume  de  Lorris  wrote  the 
Romance  of  the  Rose,  which  was  to  remain  the  most  popular 
book  in  Europe  down  to  the  age  of  printing  and  for  some  time 
thereafter.  At  the  South  of  France  the  work  of  the  Trouba- 
dours, similar  to  that  of  the  Trouveres  and  yet  with  a  spirit 
and  character  all  its  own,  was  creating  a  type  of  love  songs 
that  the  world  recurs  to  with  pleasure  whenever  the  lyrical 
aspect  of  poetry  becomes  fashionable.  The  influence  of  the 
Troubadours  was  to  be  felt  in  Italy,  and  before  the  end  of  the 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

Thirteenth  Century  there  were  many  writers  of  short  poems 
that  deserve  a  place  i'.i  what  is  best  in  literature.  Men  like 
Sordello,  Guido  Cavalcanti,  Cino  da  Pistoia,  and  Dante  da 
Maiano,  deserve  mention  in  any  historical  review  of  literature, 
quite  apart  from  the  influence  which  they  had  on  their  great 
successor,  the  Prince  of  Italian  poets  and  one  of  the 
immortal  trio  of  the  world's  supreme  creative  singers — D^nte 
Alighieri.  With  what  must  have  seemed  the  limit  of  conceit 
he  placed  himself  among  the  six  greatest  poets,  but  posterity 
breathes  his  name  only  with  those  of  Homer  and  Shakespeare. 

Dante,  in  spite  of  his  giant  personality  and  sublime  poetic 
genius,  is  not  an  exception  nor  a  solitary  phenomenon  in  the 
course  of  the  century,  but  only  a  worthy  culmination  of  the 
literary  movement  which,  beginning  in  the  distant  West  in 
Spain  and  England,  gradually  worked  eastward  quite  contrary 
to  the  usual  trend  of  human  development  and  inspired  its 
greatest  work  in  the  musical  Tuscan  dialect  after  having 
helped  in  the  foundation  of  all  the  other  modern  languages. 
Dante  is  the  supreme  type  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  the  child 
of  his  age,  but  the  great  master  whom  medieval  influences 
have  made  all  that  he  is.  That  he  belongs  to  the  century  there 
can  be  no  doubt,  and  of  himself  alone  he  would  be  quite 
sufficient  to  lift  any  period  out  of  obscurity  and  place  it 
among  the  favorite  epochs,  in  which  the  human  mind  found 
one  of  those  opportune  moments  for  the  expression  of  what  is 
sublimest  in  human  thought. 

It  is,  however,  the  bock  of  the  Arts  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury that  deserves  most  to  be  thumbed  by  the  modern  reader 
intent  on  learning  something  of  this  marvelous  period  of  hu- 
man existence.  There  is  not  a  single  branch  of  art  in  which 
the  men  of  this  generation  did  not  accomplish  excelling  things 
that  have  been  favorite  subjects  for  study  and  loving  imitation 
ever  since.  Perhaps  the  most  marvelous  quality  of  the  grand 
old  Gothic  cathedrals,  erected  during  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
is  not  their  impressiveness  as  a  whole  so  much  as  their  wonder- 
ful finish  in  detail.  It  matters  not  what  element  of  construction 
or  decoration  be  taken  into  consideration,  always  there  is  an 
approach  to  perfection  in  accomplishment  in  some  one  of  the 
cathedrals  that  shows  with  what  thoroughness  the  men  of  the 


12  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

time  comprehended  what  was  best  in  art,  and  how  finally  their 
strivings  after  perfection  were  rewarded  as  bountifully  as 
perhaps  it  has  ever  been  given  to  men  to  realize. 

Of  the  major  arts — architecture  itself,  sculpture  and  paint- 
ing—only a  word  will  be  said  here  since  they  will  be  treated 
more  fully  in  subsequent  chapters.  No  more  perfect  effort 
at  worthy  worship  of  the  Most  High  has  ever  been  accom- 
plished than  is  to  be  seen  in  the  Gothic  cathedrals  in  every 
country  in  Europe  as  they  exist  to  the  present  day.  While  the 
movement  began  in  North  France,  and  gradually  spread  to 
other  countries,  there  was  never  any  question  of  mere  slavish 
imitation,  but  on  the  contrary  in  each  country  Gothic  architec- 
ture took  on  a  national  character  and  developed  into  a  charm- 
ing expression  of  the  special  characteristics  of  the  people  for 
whom  and  by  whom  it  was  made.  English  Gothic  is,  of 
course,  quite  different^  that  of  France;  Spanish  Gothic  has 
a  character  all  its  own;  the  German  Gothic  cathedrals  par- 
take of  the  heavier  characteristics  of  the  Northern  people, 
while  Italian  Gothic  adds  certain  airy  decorative  qualities  to 
the  French  model  that  give  renewed  interest  and  inevitably 
indicate  the  origin  of  the  structures. 

In  painting,  Cimabue's  work,  so  wonderfully  appreciated  by 
the  people  of  Florence  that  spontaneously  they  flocked  in  pro- 
cession to  do  honor  to  his  great  picture,  was  the  beginning 
of  modern  art.  How  much  was  accomplished  before  the  end 
of  the  century  will  be  best  appreciated  when  the  name  of 
Giotto  is  mentioned  as  the  culmination  of  the  art  movement 
of  the  century.  As  we  shall  see,  the  work  done  by  him,  espe- 
cially at  Assisi,  has  been  a  source  of  inspiration  for  artists 
down"  even  to  our  own  time,  and  there  are  certain  qualities 
of  his  art,  especially  his  faculty  for  producing  the  feeling  of 
solidity  in  his  paintings,  in  which  very  probably  he  has  never 
been  surpassed.  Gothic  cathedrals  in  other  countries  did  not 
lend  themselves  so  well  as  subjects  of  inspiration  for  decora- 
tive art,  but  in  every  country  the  sacred  books  in  use  in  the 
cathedral  were  adorned,  at  the  command  of  the  artistic  im- 
pulse of  the  period,  in  a  way  that  has  made  the  illuminated 
missals  and  office  books  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  perhaps  the 
most  precious  that  there  are  in  the  history  of  book-making. 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

It  might  be  thought  that  in  sculpture,  at  least,  these  Thir- 
teenth-Century generations  would  prove  to  be  below  the  level 
of  that  perfection  and  artistic  expression  which  came  so 
assuredly  in  other  lines.  It  is  true  that  most  of  the  sculptures 
of  the  period  have  defects  that  make  them  unworthy  of  imi- 
tation, though  it  is  in  the  matter  of  technique  that  they  fail 
rather  than  in  honest  effort  to  express  feelings  appropriately 
within  the  domain  of  chiseled  work.  On  the  other  hand  there 
are  some  supreme  examples  of  what  is  best  in  sculpture  to 
be  found  among  the  adornments  of  the  cathedrals  of  the 
period.  No  more  simply  dignified  rendition  of  the  God  Man 
has  ever  been  made  in  stone  than  the  statue  of  Christ,  which 
with  such  charming  appropriateness  the  people  of  Amiens  have 
called  le  Beau  Dieu,  their  beautiful  God,  and  that  visitors  to 
their  great  cathedral  can  never  admire  sufficiently,  admirably 
set  off,  as  it  is,  in  its  beautiful  situation  above  the  main  door  of 
the  great  cathedral.  Other  examples  are  not  lacking,  as  for 
instance  some  of  the  Thirteenth-Century  effigies  of  the  French 
kings  and  queens  at  St.  Denis,  and  some  of  the  wonderful 
sculptures  at  Rheims.  In  its  place  as  a  subsidiary  art  to 
architecture  for  decorative  purposes,  sculpture  was  even 
more  eminently  successful.  The  best  example  of  this  is 
the  famous  Angel  Chair  of  Lincoln,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
things  that  ever  came  from  the  hand  of  man  and  whose  des- 
ignation indicates  the  belief  of  the  centuries  that  only  the 
angels  could  have  made  it. 

In  the  handicrafts  most  nearly  allied  to  the  arts,  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  reigns  supreme  with  a  splendor  unapproached 
by  what  has  been  accomplished  in  any  other  century.  The 
iron  work  of  their  gates  and  railings,  even  of  their  hinges  and 
latches  and  locks,  has  been  admired  and  imitated  by  many 
generations  since.  When  a  piece  of  it  is  no  longer  of  use,  or 
loosens  from  the  crumbling  woodwork  to  which  it  was  attach- 
ed, it  is  straightway  transported  to  some  museum,  there  to 
be  displayed  not  alone  for  its  antiquarian  interest,  but  also 
as  a  model  and  a  suggestion  to  the  modern  designer. 
This  same  thing  is  true  of  the  precious  metal  work  of  the 
times  also,  at  least  as  tegards  the  utensils  and  ornaments  em- 
ployed in  the  sacred  services.  The  chalices  and  other  sacred 


14  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

vessels  were  made  on  severely  simple  lines  and  according  to 
models  which  have  since  become  the  types  of  such  sacred 
utensils  for  all  times. 

The  vestments  used  in  the  sacred  ceremonials  partook  of  this 
same  character  of  eminently  appropriate  handiwork  united  to 
the  chastest  of  designs,  executed  with  supreme  taste.  The  fam- 
ous cope  of  Ascoli  which  the  recent  Pierpont  Morgan  incident 
brought  into  prominence  a  year  or  so  ago,  is  a  sample  of  the 
needlework  of  the  times  that  illustrates  its  perfection.  It 
is  said  by  those  who  are  authorities  in  the  matter  that  Thir- 
teenth-Century needlework  represents  what  is  best  in  this 
line.  It  is  not  the  most  elaborate,  nor  the  most  showy,  but  it  is 
in  accordance  with  the  best  taste,  supremely  suitable  to  the 
objects  of  which  it  formed  a  part.  It  is,  after  all,  only  an  al- 
most inevitable  appendix  to  the  beautiful  work  done  in  the 
illumination  of  the  sacred  books,  that  the  sacred  vestments 
should  have  been  quite  as  supremely  artistic  and  just  as  much 
triumphs  of  art. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  every  minutest  detail  of  cathedral  con- 
struction and  ornamentation  shared  in  this  artistic  triumph. 
Even  the  inscriptions,  done  in  brass  upon  the  gravestones  that 
formed  part  of  the  cathedral  pavements,  are  models  of  their 
kind,  and  rubbings  from  them  are  frequently  taken  because  of 
their  marvelous  effectiveness  as  designs  in  Gothic  tracery. 

Their  bells  were  made  with  such  care  and  such  perfection 
that,  down  to  the  present  time,  nothing  better  has  been  accom- 
plished in  this  handicraft,  and  their  marvelous  retention  of 
tone  shows  how  thorough  was  the  work  of  these  early  bell- 
makers. 

The  triumph  of  artistic  decoration  in  the  cathedrals,  how- 
ever, and  the  most  marvelous  page  in  the  book  of  the  Arts  of 
the  century,  remains  to  be  spoken  of  in  their  magnificent  stain- 
ed-glass windows.  Where  they  learned  their  secret  of  glass- 
making  we  know  not.  Artists  of  the  modern  time,  who  have 
spent  years  in  trying  to  perfect  their  own  work  in  this  line, 
would  give  anything  to  have  some  of  the  secrets  of  the  glass- 
makers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Such  windows  as  the  Five 
Sisters  at  York,  or  the  wonderful  Jesse  window  of  Chartres 
with  some  of  its  companions,  are  the  despair  of  the  modern 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

artists  in  stained  glass.  The  fact  that  their  glass-making  was 
not  done  at  one,  or  even  a  few,  common  centers,  but  was  ap- 
parently executed  in  each  of  these  small  medieval  towns  that 
were  the  site  of  a  cathedral,  only  adds  to  the  marvel  of  how 
the  workmen  of  the  time  succeeded  so  well  in  accomplishing 
their  purpose  of  solving  the  difficult  problems  of  stained 
glasswork. 

If,  to  crown  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, we  now  add  a  brief  account  of  what  was  accomplished 
for  men  in  the  matter  of  liberty  and  the  establishment  of  legal 
rights,  we  shall  have  a  reasonably  adequate  introduction  to  this 
great  subject.  Liberty  is  thought  to  be  a  word  whose  true  sig- 
nificance is  of  much  more  recent  origin  than  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  The  rights  of  men  are  usually  supposed  to  have 
received  serious  acknowledgment  only  in  comparatively  re- 
cent centuries.  The  recalling  of  a  few  facts,  however,  will 
dispel  this  illusion  and  show  how  these  men  of  the  later  middle 
age  laid  the  foundation  of*  most  of  the  rights  and  privileges 
that  we  are  so  proud  to  consider  our  birthright  in  this  modern 
time.  The  first  great  fact  in  the  history  of  modern  liberty  is  the 
signing  of  Magna  Charta  which  took  place  only  a  little  after 
the  middle  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The 
movement  that  led  up  to  it  had  arisen  amongst  the  guildsmen 
as  well  as  the  churchmen  and  the  nobles  of  the  preceding 
century.  When  the  document  was  signed,  however,  these  men 
did  not  consider  that  their  work  was  finished.  They  kept 
themselves  ready  to  take  further  advantage  of  the  necessities 
of  their  rulers  and  it  was  not  long  before  they  had  secured 
political  as  well  as  legal  rights. 

Shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  the  first 
English  parliament  met,  and  in  the  latter  part  of  that  half  cen- 
tury it  became  a  formal  institution  with  regularly  appointed 
times  of  meeting  and  definite  duties  and  privileges.  Then 
began  the  era  of  law  in  its  modern  sense  for  the  English 
people.  The  English  common  law  took  form  and  its  great  prin- 
ciples were  enunciated  practically  in  the  terms  in  which  they 
are  stated  down  to  the  present  day.  Bracton  made  his  famous 
digest  of  the  English  common  law  for  the  use  of  judges  and 
lawyers  and  it  became  a  standard  work  of  reference.  Such  it 


16  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

has  remained  down  to  our  own  time.  At  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury, during  the  reign  of  Edward  I,  the  English  Justinian,  the 
laws  of  the  land  were  formulated,  lacunae  in  legislation  filled 
up,  rights  and  privileges  fully  determined,  real-estate  laws 
put  on  a  modern  basis,  and  the  most  important  portions  of  Eng- 
lish law  became  realities  that  were  to  be  modified  but  not  es- 
sentially changed  in  all  the  after  time. 

This  history  of  liberty  and  of  law-making,  so  familiar  with 
regard  to  England,  must  be  repeated  almost  literally  with 
regard  to  the  continental  nations.  In  France,  the  foundation 
of  the  laws  of  the  kingdom  were  laid  during  the  reign  of 
Louis  IX,  and  French  authorities  in  the  history  of  law,  point 
with  pride,  to  how  deeply  and  broadly  the  foundations  of 
French  jurisprudence  were  laid.  Under  Louis's  cousin,  Fer- 
dinand III  of  Castile,  who,  like  the  French  monarch,  has  re- 
ceived the  title  of  Saint,  because  of  the  uprightness  of  his  char- 
acter  and  all  that  he  did  for  his  people,  forgetful  of  himself, 
the  foundations  of  Spanish  law  were  laid,  and  it  is  to  that  time 
that  Spanish  jurists  trace  the  origin  of  nearly  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  their  people.  In  Germany  there  is  a  corres- 
ponding story.  In  Saxony  there  was  the  issue  of  a  famous 
book  of  laws,  which  represented  all  the  grants  of  the  sover- 
eigns, and  all  the  claims  of  subjects  that  had  been  admitted  by 
monarchs  up  to  that  time.  In  a  word,  everywhere  there  was  a 
codification  of  laws  and  a  laying  of  foundations  in  jurisprud- 
ence, upon  which  the  modern  superstructure  of  law  was  to 
rise. 

This  is  probably  the  most  surprising  part  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century.  When  it  began  men  below  the  rank  of  nobles  were 
practically  slaves.  Whatever  rights  they  had  were  uncertain, 
liable  to  frequent  violation  because  of  their  indefinite  character, 
and  any  generation  might,  under  the  tyranny  of  some  con- 
sciousless  monarch,  have  lost  even  the  few  privileges  they  had 
enjoyed  before.  At  the  close  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  this  was 
no  longer  possible.  The  laws  had  been  written  down  and  mon- 
archs were  bound  by  them  as  well  as  their  subjects.  Individ- 
ual caprice  might  no  longer  deprive  them  arbitrarily  of  their 
rights  and  hard  won  privileges,  though  tyranny  might  still  as- 
sert itself  and  a  submissive  generation  might,  for  a  time, 


INTRODUCTION. 


17 


allow  themselves  to  be  governed  by  measures  beyond  the  do- 
main of  legal  justification.  Any  subsequent  generation  might, 
however,  begin  anew  its  assertion  of  its  rights  from  the  old' 
time  laws,  rather  than  from  the  position  to  which  their  forbears 
had  been  reduced  by  a  tyrant's  whim. 

Is  it  any  wonder,  then,  that  we  should  call  the  generations 
that  gave  us  the  cathedrals,  the  universities,  the  great  techni- 
cal schools  that  were  organized  by  the  trades  guilds,  the  greaJ 
national  literatures  that  lie  at  the  basis  of  all  our  modern  litera- 
ture, the  beginnings  of  sculpture  and  of  art  carried  to  such 
heights  that  artistic  principles  were  revealed  for  all  time,  and, 
finally,  the  great  men  and  women  of  this  century — for  more 
than  any  other  it  glories  in  names  that  were  born  not  to  die 
— is  it  at  all  surprising  that  we  should  claim  for  the  period 
which,  in  addition  to  all  this,  saw  the  foundation  of  modern 
law  and  liberty,  the  right  to  be  hailed — the  greatest  of 
human  history? 


THE   CHURCH    [SYMBOLIZED]    (PARIS) 


18  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

II 
UNIVERSITIES  AND  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS. 


To  see,  at  once,  how  well  the  Thirteenth  deserves  the 
name  of  the  greatest  of  centuries,  it  is  necessary,  only,  to 
open  the  book  of  her  deeds  and  read  therein  what  was  accom- 
plished during  this  period  for  the  education  of  the  men  of  the 
time.  It  is,  after^all^vhat^a  generation  accomplishes  for  in- 
tellectual development  and  social  uplift  that  must,  be  counted 
as  its  greatest  triumph,  ll  life  is  larger  in  its  opportunities, 
if  men  appreciate  its  significance  better,  if  the  development 
of  the  human  mind  has  been  rendered  easier,  if  that  precious 
thing,  whose  name,  education,  has  been  so  much  abused,  is 
made  readier  of  attainment,  then  the  generation  stamps  itself 
as  having  written  down  in  its  book  of  deeds,  things  worthy  for 
all  subsequent  generations  to  read.  Though  anything  like 
proper  appreciation  of  it  has  come  only  in  very  recent  times, 
(jhere  is  absolutely  no  period  of  equal  length  in  the  history  of 
mankind  in  which  so  much  was  not  only  attempted,  but  success- 
fully accomplished  for  education,  in  every  sense  of  the  word, 
as  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.^)  This  included,  not  only  the 
education  of  the  classes  but  also  the  education  of  the  masses. 

For  the  moment,  we  shall  concern  ourselves  only  with  the 
education  offered  to,  and  taken  advantage  of  by  so  many,  in 
the  universities  of  the  time.  (It  was  just  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  that  the  great  universities  came  into 
being  as  schools,  in  which  all  the  ordinary  forms  of  learning 
were  taught.  During  the  Twelfth  Century,  Bologna  had  had  a 
famous  school  of  law  which  attracted  students  from  all  over 
Europe^  Under  Irnerius,  canon  and  civil  law  secured  9,  popu- 
larity as  subjects  of  study  such  as  they  never  had  before.  The 
study  of  the  old  Roman  Law  brought  back  with  it  an  interest 
in  the  Latin  classics,  and  the  beginning  of  the  true  new  birth 
— the  real  renaissance — of  modern  education  must  be  traced 
from  here.  At  Paris  there  was  a  theological  school  attached  to 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  19 

the  cathedral  which  gradually  became  noted  for  its  devotion  to 
philosophy  as  the  basis  of  theology,  and,  about  the  middle  of 
the  Twelfth  Century,  attracted  students  from  every  part  of  the 
civilized  world.  As  was  the  case  at  Bologna,  interest  after  a- 
time  was  not  limited  to  philosophy  and  theology ;  other 
branches  of  study  were  admitted  to  the  curriculum  and  a  uni- 
versity in  the  modern  sor;se  came  into  existence. 

During  the  first  quarter  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  both  of 
these  schools  developed  faculties  for  the  teaching  of  all  the 
known  branches  of  knowledge.  At  Bologna  faculties  of  arts, 
of  philosophy  and  theology,  and  finally  of  medicine,  were  grad- 
ually added,  and  students  flocked  in  ever  increasing  numbers 
to  take  advantage  of  these  additional  opportunities.  At  Paris, 
the  school  of  medicine  was  established  early  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  and  there  were  graduates  in  medicine  before  the  year 
1 220.  Law  came  later,  but  was  limited  to  Canon  law  to  a  great 
extent,  Orleans  having  a  monopoly  of  civil  law  for  more  than 
a  century.  These  two  universities,  Bologna  and  Paris,  were, 
in  every  sense  of  the  word,  early  in  the  century,  real  universi- 
ties, differing  in  no  essential  from  our  modern  institutions  that 
bear  the  same  name. 

If  the  Thirteenth  Century  had  done  nothing  else  but  put  into 
shape  this  great  instrument  for  the  training  of  the  human  mind, 
which  has  maintained  its  effectiveness  during  seven  centuries, 
it  must  be  accorded  a  place  among  the  epoch-making  periods 
of  history.  With  all  our  advances  in  modern  education  we 
have  not  found  it  necessary,  or  even  advisable,  to  change,  in 
any  essential  way,  this  mold  in  which  the  human  intellect  has 
been  cast  for  all  these  years.  If  a  man  wants  knowledge  for 
its  own  sake,  or  for  some  practical  purpose  in  life,  then  here 
are  the  faculties  which  will  enable  him  to  make  a  good  begin- 
ning on  the  road  he  wishes  to  travel.  If  he  wants  knowledge 
of  the  liberal  arts,  or  the  consideration  of  man's  duties  to  him- 
self, to  his  fellow-man  and  to  his  Creator,  he  will  find  in  the 
faculties  of  arts  and  philosophy  and  theology  the  great 
sources  of  knowledge  in  these  subjects.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  wishes  to  apply  his  mind  either  to  the  disputes 
of  men  about  property,  or  to  their  injustices  toward  one  an- 
other and  the  correction  of  abuses,  then  the  faculty  of  law  will 


20  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

supply  his  wants,  and  finally  the  medical  school  enables  him,  if 
he  wishes,  to  learn  all  that  can  be  known  at  a  given  time  with 
regard  to  man's  ills  and  their  healing.  We  have  admitted  the 
practical-work  subjects  into  university  life,  though  not  without 
protest,  but  architecture,  engineering,  bridge-building  and  the 
like,  in  which  the  men  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  accomplished 
such  wonders,  were  relegated  to  the  guilds  whose  technical 
schools,  though  they  did  not  call  them  by  that  name,  were 
quite  as  effective  practical  educators  as  even  the  most  vaunted 
of  our  modern  university  mechanical  departments. 
-  It  is  rather  interesting  to  trace  the  course  of  the  develop- 
ment of  schools  in  our  modern  sense  of  the  term,  because  their 
evolution  recapitulates,  to  some  degree  at  least,  the  history  of 
the  individual's  interest  in  life.  The  first  school  which  acquired 
a  European  reputation  was  that  of  Salernum,  a  little  town  not 
far  from  Naples,  which  possessed  a  famous  medical  school  as 
early  as  the  ninth  century,  perhaps  earlier.  This  never  became 
a  university,  though  its  reputation  as  a  great  medical  school 
was  maintained  for  several  centuries.  This  first  educational 
opportunity  to  attract  a  large  body  of  students  from  all  over 
the  world  concerned  mainly  the  needs  of  the  body.  The  next 
set  of  interests  which  man,  in  the  course  of  evolution  develops, 
has  to  do  with  the  acquisition  and  retention  of  property  and  the 
maintenance  of  his  rights  as  an  individual.  It  is  nor  surprising, 
then,  to  find  that  the  next  school  of  world-wide  reputation  was 
that  of  law  at  Bologna  which  became  the  nucleus  of  a  great 
university.  It  is  only  after  man  has  looked  out  for  his  bodily 
needs  and  his  property  rights,  that  he  conies  to  think  of  his  du- 
ties toward  himself,  his  fellow-men,  and  his  Creator,  and  so  the 
third  of  these  great  medieval  schools,  in  time,  was  that  of  phil- 
osophy and  theology,  at  Paris.  ' 

It  is  sometimes  thought  that  the  word  university  applied 
to  these  institutions  after  the  aggregation  of  other  faculties, 
was  due  to  the  fact  that  there  was  a  universality  of  studies, 
that  all  branches  of  knowledge  might  be  followed  in  them.  The 
word  university,  however,  was  not  originally  applied  to  the 
school  itself,  which,  if  it  had  all  the  faculties  of  the  modern 
university,  was,  in  the  Thirteenth  Century^  called  a  studium 
generate.  The  Latin  word  universitas  had  quite  a  different 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  21 

usage  at  that  time.  Whenever  letters  were  formally  addressed 
to  the  combined  faculties  of  a  studium  generale  by  reigning 
sovereigns,  or  by  the  Pope,  or  by  other  high  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities, they  always  began  with  the  designation,  Universitas 
Vestra,  implying  that  the  greeting  was  to  all  of  the  faculty, 
universally  and  without  exception.  Gradually,  because  of  this 
word  constantly  occurring  at  the  beginning  of  letters  to  the 
faculty,  the  term  universitas  came  to  be  applied  to  the  institu- 
tion. * 

While  the  universities,  as  is  typically  exemplified  by  the  his- 
tories of  Bologna  and  Paris,  and  even  to  a  noteworthy  degree 
of  Oxford,  grew  up  around  the  cathedrals,  they  cannot  be  con- 
sidered in  any  sense  the  deliberate  creation,  much  less  the  for- 
mal invention,  of  any  particular  set  of  men.  The  idea  of  a 
university  was  not  born  into  the  world  in  full  panoply  as 
Minerva  from  the  brain  of  Jove.  No  one  set  about  consciously 
organizing  for  the  establishment  of  complete  institutions  of 
learning.  Like  everything  destined  to  mean  much  in  the  world 
the  universities  were  a  natural  growth  from  the  favoring  soil 
in  which  living  seeds  were  planted.  They  sprang  from  the  won- 
derful inquiring  spirit  of  the  time  and  the  marvelous  desire 
for  knowledge  and  for  the  higher  intellectual  life  that  came 
over  the  people  of  Europe  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The 
school  at  Paris  became  famous,  and  attracted  pupils  during 
the  Twelfth  Century,  because  of  the  new-born  interest  in  schol- 
astic philosophy.  After  the  pupils  had  gathered  in  large  num- 
bers their  enthusiasm  led  to  the  establishment  of  further 
courses  of  study.  The  same  thing  was  true  at  Bologna,  where 
the  study  of  Law  first  attracted  a  crowd  of  earnest  students, 
and  then  the  demand  for  broader  education  led  to  the  establish- 
ment of  other  faculties. 

*  Certain  other  terms  that  occur  in  these  letters  of  greeting  to  uni- 
versity officials  have  a  more  than  passing  interest.  The  rector  of  the 
university,  for  instance,  was  always  formally  addressed  as  Amplitudo 
Vestra,  that  is,  Your  Ampleness.  Considering  the  fact  that  not  a  few  of 
the  rectors  of  the  old  time  universities,  all  of  whom  were  necessarily 
ecclesiastics,  must  have  had  the  ampleness  of  girth  so  characteristic 
of  their  order  under  certain  circumstances,  there  is  an  appropriateness 
about  this  formal  designation  which  perhaps  appeals  more  to  the  risi- 
bilities of  the  modern  mind  than  to  those  of  medieval  time. 


22  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Above  all,  there  was  no  conscious  attempt  on  the  part  of 
any  supposed  better  class  to  stoop  down  and  uplift  those  pre- 
sumably below  it.  As  we  shall  see,  the  students  of  the  uni- 
versity came  mainly  from  the  middle  class  of  the  population. 
They  became  ardently  devoted  to  their  teachers.  As_  in_all 
really  educational  work,  it  was  the  man  and  not  the  institu- 
tion that  counted  for  much.  In  case  of  disagreement  of  one 
of  these  with  the  university  authorities,  not  infrequently  there 
was  a  sacrifice  of  personal  advantage  for  the  moment  on  the 
part  of  the  students  in  order  to  follow  a  favorite  teacher.  Paris 
had  examples  of  this  several  times  before  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, and  notably  in  the  case  of  Abelard  had  seen  thousands  of 
students  follow  him  into  the  distant  desert  where  he  had  retired. 

Later  on,  when  abuses  on  the  part  of  the  authorities  of  Paris 
limited  the  University's  privileges,  led  to  the  withdrawal  of 
students  and  the  foundation  of  Oxford,  there  was  a  community 
of  interest  on  the  part  of  certain  members  of  the  faculty  and 
thousands  of  students.  This  movement  was,  however,  dis- 
tinctly of  a  popular  character,  in  the  sense  that  it  was  not 
guided  by  political  or  other  leaders.  Nearly  all  of  the  features 
of  university  life  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  emphasize 
the  democracy  jofjeeling  of  the  students,  and  make  it  clear 
that  the  blowing  of  the  wind  of  the  spirit  of  human  liberty 
and  intellectual  enthusiasm  influencing  the  minds  of  the  gen- 
eration, rather  than  any  formal  attempt  on  the  part  of  any  class 
of  men  deliberately  to  provide  educational  opportunities,  is 
the  underlying  feature  of  university  foundation  and  develop- 
ment. 

While  the  great  universities  of  Paris,  Bologna,  and  Oxford 
were,  by  far,  the  most  important,  they  must  not  be  considered 
as  the  only  educational  institutions  deserving  the  name  of  uni- 
versities, even  in  our  modern  sense,  that  took  definite  form  dur- 
ing the  Thirteenth  Century.  In  Italy,  mainly  under  the  foster- 
ing care  of  ecclesiastics,  encouraged  by  such  Popes  as  Innocent 
III,  Gregory  IX,  and  Honorius  IV,  nearly  a  dozen  other  towns 
and  cities  saw  the  rise  of  Studia  Generalia  eventually  destined, 
and  that  within  a  few  decades  after  their  foundation,  to  have 
the  complete  set  of  faculties,  and  such  a  number  of  teachers 
and  of  students  as  merited  for  them  the  name  of  University. 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  23 

Very  early  in  the  century  Vicenza,  Reggio,  and  Arezzo  be- 
came university  towns.  Before  the  first  quarter  of  the  century 
was  finished  there  were  universities  at  Padua,  at  Naples,  and 
at  Vercelli.  In  spite  of  the  troublous  times  and  the  great  re- 
duction in  the  population  of  Rome  there  was  a  university 
founded  in  connection  v/ith  the  Roman  Curia,  that  is  the  Papal 
Court,  before  the  middle  of  the  century,  and  Siena  and  Pia- 
cenza  had  founded  rival  university  institutions.  Perugia  had 
a  famous  school  which  became  a  complete  university  early 
in  the  Fourteenth  Century. 

Nor  were  other  countries  much  behind  Italy  in  this  enthus- 
iastic movement.  Montpelier  had,  for  over  a  century  before 
the  beginning  of  the  thirteenth,  rejoiced  in  a  medical  school 
which  was  the  most  important  rival  of  that  at  Salernum.  At 
the  beginning  this  reflected  largely  the  Moorish  element  in  edu- 
cational affairs  in  Europe  at  this  time.  During  the  course  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  Montpelier  developed  into  a  full-fledged 
university  though  the  medical  school  still  continued  to  be  the 
most  important  faculty.  Medical  students  from  all  over  the 
world  flocked  to  the  salubrious  town  to  which  patients  from  all 
over  were  attracted,  and  its  teachers  and  writers  of  medicine 
have  been  famous  in  medical  history  ever  since.  How  thorough 
was  the  organization  of  clinical  medical  work  at  Montpelier 
may  perhaps  best  be  appreciated  from  the  fact,  noted  in  the 
chapter  on  City  Hospitals — Organized  Charity,  that  when 
Pope  Innocent  III.  wished  to  establish  a  model  hospital  at 
Rome  with  the  idea  that  it  would  form  an  exemplar  for  other 
European  cities,  he  sent  down  to  Montpelier  and  summoned 
Guy,  the  head  of  the  Hospital  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  that  city, 
to  the  Papal  Capital  to  establish  the  Roman  Hospital  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  and,  in  connection  with  it,  a  large  number  of  hos- 
pitals all  over  Europe. 

A  corresponding  state  of  affairs  to  that  of  Montpelier  is  to 
be  noted  at  Orleans,  only  here  the  central  school,  around 
which  the  university  gradually  grouped  itself,  was  the 
Faculty  of  Civil  Law.  Canon  law  was  taught  at  Paris  in 
connection  with  the  theological  course,  but  there  had  always 
been  objection  to  the  admission  of  civil  law  as  a  faculty  on  a 
basis  of  equality  with  the  other  faculties.  There  was  indeed 


24  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

at  this  time  some  rivalry  between  the  civil  and  the  canon 
law  and  so  the  study  of  civil  law  was  relegated  to  other  uni- 
versities. Even  early  in  the  Twelfth  Century  Orleans  was 
famous  for  its  school  of  civil  law  in  which  the  exposition  of 
the  principles  of  the  old  Roman  law  constituted  the  basis  of  the 
university  course.  During  the  Thirteenth  Century  the  remain- 
ing departments  of  the  university  gradually  developed,  so  that 
by  the  close  of  the  century,  there  seem  to  be  conservative 
claims  for  over  one  thousand  students.  Besides  these  three, 
French  universities  were  also  established  at  Angers,  at 
Toulouse,  and  the  beginnings  of  institutions  to  become  uni- 
versities early  in  the  next  century  are  recorded  at  Avignon 
and  Cahors. 

Spain  felt  the  impetus  of  th^  university  movement  early 
in  the  Thirteenth  Century  and  a  university  was  founded  at  Pal- 
encia  about  the  end  of  the  first  decade.  This  was  founded  by 
Alfonso  XII.  and  was  greatly  encouraged  by  him.  It  is  some- 
times said  that  this  university  was  transferred  to  Salamanca 
about  1230,  but  this  is  denied  by  Denifle,  whose  authority  in 
matters  of  university  history  is  unquestionable.  It  seems  not 
unlikely  that  Salamanca  drew  a  number  of  students  from 
Palencia  but  that  the  latter  continued  still  to  attract  many 
students.  About  the  middle  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  the  uni- 
versity of  Valladolid  was  founded.  Before  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury a  fourth  university,  that  of  Lerida,  had  been  established 
in  the  Spanish  peninsula.  Spain  was  to  see  the  greatest 
development  of  universities  during  the  Fourteenth  Century. 
It  was  not  long  after  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  before 
Coimbra,  in  Portugal,  began  to  assume  importance  as  an  edu- 
cational institution,  though  it  was  not  to  have  sufficient 
faculty  and  students  to  deserve  the  more  ambitious  title  of 
university  for  half  a  century. 

While  most  people  who  know  anything  about  the  history  of 
education  realize  the  important  position  occupied  by  the  uni- 
versities during  the  Thirteenth  Century  and  appreciate  the  esti- 
mation in  which  they  were  held  and  the  numbers  that  attended 
them,  very  few  seem  to  know  anything  of  the  preparatory 
schools  of  the  time,  and  are  prone  to  think  that  all  the  educa- 
tional effort  of  these  generations  was  exhausted  in  connection 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  25 

with  the  university.  It  is  often  said,  as  we  shall  see,  that  one 
reason  for  the  large  number  of  students  reported  as  in  atten- 
dance at  the  universities  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  these  institutions  practically  combined 
the  preparatory  school  and  the  academy  of  our  time  with  the 
university.  The  universities  are  supposed  to  have  been  the  only 
centers  of  education  worthy  of  mention.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
a  number  of  quite  young  students  were  in  attendance  at  the 
universities,  that  is,  boys  from  12  to  15  who  would  in  our  time 
be  only  in  the  preparatory  school.  We  shall  explain,  however, 
in  the  chapter  on  the  Numbers  in  Attendance  at  the  Universi- 
ties that  students  went  to  college  much  younger  in  the  past 
and  graduated  much  earlier  than  they  do  in  our  day,  yet  appar- 
ently, without  any  injury  to  the  efficacy  of  their  educational 
training. 

In  the  universities  of  Southern  Europe  it  is  still  the  custom 
for  boys  to  graduate  with  the  degree  of  A.  B.  at  the  age  of 
15  to  1 6,  which  supposes  attendance  at  the  university,  or  its 
equivalent  in  under-graduate  courses,  at  the  age  of  12  or  even 
less.  There  is  no  need,  however,  to  appeal  to  the  precociousness 
of  the  southern  nations  in  explanation  of  this,  since  there  are 
some  good  examples  of  it  in  comparatively  recent 
times  here  in  America.  Most  of  the  colleges  in 
this  country,  in  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth  century 
and  the  end  of  the  eighteenth,  graduated  young  men  of  16  and 
17  and  thought  that  they  were  accomplishing  a  good  pur- 
pose, in  allowing  them  to  get  at  their  life  work  in  early  man- 
hood. Many  of  the  distinguished  divines  who  made  names  in 
educational  work  are  famous  for  their  early  graduations.  Dr. 
Benjamin  Rush,  of  Philadelphia,  whom  the  medical  profession 
of  this  country  hails  as  the  Father  of  American  Medicine,  grad- 
uated at  Princeton  at  15.  He  must  have  begun  his  college 
course,  therefore,  about  the  age  of  12.  This  may  be  considered 
inadvisable  in  our  generation,  but,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
there  are  many  even  in  our  day,  who  think  that  our  college  men 
are  allowed  to  get  at  their  life-work  somewhat  too  late  for  their 
own  good. 

It  must  be  emphasized,  moreover,  that  in  many  of  the  uni- 
versity towns  there  were  also  preparatory  schools.  Courses 


26  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

were  not  regularly  organized  until  well  on  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  but  younger  brothers  and  friends  of  students  as  well 
as  of  professors  would  riot  infrequently  be  placed  under  their 
care  and  thus  be  enabled  to  receive  their  preparation  for  uni- 
versity work.  At  Paris,  Robert  Sorbonne  founded  a  prepara- 
tory school  for  that  institution  under  the  name  of  the  College 
of  Calvi.  Other  colleges  of  this  kind  also  existed  in  Paris. 
This  custom  of  having  a  preparatory  school  in  association 
with  the  university  has  not  been  abandoned  even  in  our  own 
day,  and  it  has  some  decided  advantages  from  an  educational 
standpoint,  though  perhaps  these  are  not  enough  to  balance 
certain  ethical  disadvantages  almost  sure  to  attach  to  such  a 
system,  disadvantages  which  ultimately  led  in  the  Middle  Ages 
to  the  prohibition  that  young  students  should  be  taken  at  the 
universities  under  any  pretext. 

The  presence  of  these  young  students  in  university  towns 
probably  did  add  considerably  to  the  numbers  reported  as  in 
attendance.  It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  there  were 
no  formal  preparatory  schools  quite  apart  from  university 
influence.  This  thought  has  been  the  root  of  more  misunder- 
standing of  the  medieval  system  of  education  than  almost  any 
other.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  were  preliminary  and  prepara- 
tory schools,  what  we  would  now  call  academies  and  colleges, 
in  connection  with  all  of  the  important  monasteries  and  with 
every  cathedral.  Schools  of  less  importance  were  required  by 
a  decree  of  a  council  held  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  to  be  maintained  in  connection  with  every  bishop's 
church.  During  the  Thirteenth  Century  there  were  some 
twenty  cathedrals  in  various  parts  of  England;  each  one  had 
its  cathedral  school.  Besides  these  there  were  at  least  as  many 
important  abbeys,  nearly  a  dozen  of  them  immense  institutions, 
in  which  there  were  fine  libraries,  large  writing  rooms,  in 
which  copies  of  books  were  being  constantly  made,  many 
of  the  members  of  the  communities  of  which  were  university 
men,  and  around  which,  therefore,  there  clung  an  atmosphere 
of  bookishness  and  educational  influence  that  made  them  pre- 
paratory schools  of  a  high  type.  The  buildings  themselves 
were  of  the  highest  i^pe  of  architecture;  the  community  life 
was  well  calculated  to  bring  out  what  was  best  in  the  intellect- 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  27 

uality  of  members  of  the  community,  and,  then,  there  was  a 
rivalry  between  the  various  religious  orders  which  made  them 
prepare  their  men  well  in  order  that  they  might  do  honor  to  the 
order  when  they  had  the  opportunity  later,  as  most  of  those 
who  had  the  ability  and  the  taste  actually  did  have,  to  go  to  one 
or  other  of  the  universities. 

This  system  of  preparatory  schools  need  not  be  accepted  on 
the  mere  assumption  that  the  monasteries  and  churches  must 
surely  have  set  about  such  work,  because  there  is  abundant 
evidence  of  the  actual  establishment  and  maintenance  of  such 
schools.  With  regard  to  the  monasteries  there  can  be  no  doubt, 
because  it  was  the  members  of  the  religious  orders  who  par- 
ticularly distinguished  themselves  at  the  universities,  and  the 
histories  of  Oxford,  Cambridge,  and  Paris  are  full  of  their 
accomplishments.  They  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  right  to 
have  their  own  houses  at  the  universities  and  to  have  their 
own  examinations  count  in  university  work,  in  order  that  they 
might  maintain  their  influence  over  the  members  of  the  orders 
during  the  precious  formative  period  of  their  intellectual  life. 
With  regard  to  the  church  schools  there  is  convincing  evi- 
dence of  another  kind. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  foundation  of  City  Hospitals  we  have 
detailed  on  the  authority  of  Virchow  all  that  Innocent  III.  ac- 
complished for  the  hospital  system  of  Europe.  This  chapter 
was  published  originally  in  the  form  of  a  lecture  from  the  his- 
torical department  of  the  Medical  School  of  Fordham  Univer- 
sity and  a  reprint  of  it  was  sent  to  a  distinguished  American 
educator  well  known  for  his  condemnation  of  supposed  church 
intolerance  in  the  matter  of  education  and  scientific  develop- 
ment. He  said  that  he  was  glad  to  have  it  because  it  confirmed 
and  even  broadened  the  idea  that  he  had  long  cherished,  that  the 
Church  had  done  more  for  Charity  during  the  despised  Middle 
Ages  than  national  governments  had  ever  been  able  to  accom- 
plish since,  though  it  was  all  the  more  surprising  to  him  that  it 
should  not  have  under  the  circumstances,  done  more  for  educa- 
tion, since  this  might  have  prevented  some  of  the  ills  that  chari- 
ty had  afterward  to  relieve.  This  expression  very  probably  rep- 
resents the  state  of  mind  of  very  many  scholars  with  regard  to 
this  period.  The  Church  is  supposed  to  have  interested  herself 


28  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

in  charity  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  educational  influence 
Charity  is  of  course  admitted  to  be  her  special  work,  yet  these 
scholars  cannot  help  but  regret  that  more  was  not  done  in  so- 
cial prophylaxis  by  the  encouragement  of  education. 

In  the  light  of  this  almost  universal  expression  it  is  all  the 
more  interesting  to  find  that  such  opinions  are  founded  entirely 
on  a  lack  of  knowledge  of  what  was  done  in  education,  since 
the  same  Pope,  in  practically  the  same  way  and  by  the  exertion 
of  the  same  prestige  and  ecclesiastical  authority,  did  for  educa- 
tion just  what  he  did  for  charity  in  the  matter  of  the  hospitals 
and  the  ailing  poor.  Virchow,  as  we  shall  see,  declared  that 
to  Innocent  III.  is  due  the  foundation  of  practically  all  the  city 
hospitals  in  Europe.  If  the  effect  of  certain  of  the  decrees 
issued  in  his  papacy  be  carefully  followed,  it  will  be  found  that 
practically  as  many  schools  as  hospitals  owe  their  origin  to  his 
beneficent  wisdom  and  his  paternal  desire  to  spread  the  advan- 
tages of  Christianity  all  over  the  civilized  world.  This  policy 
with  regard  to  the  hospitals  led  to  the  foundation  before  the  end 
of  the  century  of  at  least  one  hospital  in  every  diocese  of  all  the 
countries  which  were  more  closely  allied  with  the  Holy  See. 
There  is  extant  a  decree  issued  by  the  famous  council  of  La- 
teran,  in  1215,  a  council  in  which  Innocent's  authority  was  dom- 
inant, requiring  the  establishment  of  a  Chair  of  Grammar  in 
connection  with  every  cathedral  in  the  Christian  world.  This 
Chair  of  Grammar  included  at  least  three  of  the  so-called  liberal 
arts  and  provided  for  what  would  now  be  called  the  education 
of  a  school  preparatory  to  a  university. 

Before  this,  Innocent  III,*  who  had  himself  received  the  ben- 
efit of  the  best  education  of  the  time,  having  spent  some  years  at 
Rome  and  later  at  Paris  and  at  Bologna,  had  encouraged  the 

*Most  of  the  details  of  what  was  accomplished  for  education  by 
Pope  Innocent  III,  and  all  the  references  needed  to  supply  further 
information,  can  be  found  in  the  Hestoire  Litteratire  de  la  France, 
recent  volumes  of  which  were  issued  by  the  French  Institute,  though 
the  magnificent  work  itself  was  begun  by  Benedictines  of  St.  Maur, 
who  completed  some  fifteen  volumes.  The  sixteenth  volume,  most  of 
which  is  written  by  Daunou,  is  especially  valuable  for  this  period. 
Du  Boulay,  in  his  History  of  the  University  of  Paris,  will  furnish  addi- 
tional information  with  regard  to  Pope  Innocent's  relations  to  educa- 
tion throughout  Europe,  especially,  of  course,  in  what  regards  the 
University  of  Paris. 


CATHEDRAL    (YORK) 


CATHEDRAL    (LINCOLN) 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  29 

sending  of  students  to  these  universities  in  every  way.  Bishops 
who  came  to  Rome  were  sure  to  hear  inculcated  the  advisability 
of  a  taste  for  letters  in  clergymen,  hear  it  said  often  enough  that 
such  a  taste  would  surely  increase  the  usefulness  of  all  church- 
men. Schools  had  been  encouraged  before  the  issuance  of  the 
decree.  This  only  came  as  a  confirmatory  document  calculated 
to  perpetuate  the  policy  that  had  already  been  so  prominently 
in  vogue  in  the  church  for  over  fifteen  years  of  the  Pope's  reign. 
It  was  meant,  too,  to  make  clear  to  hesitant  and  tardy  bishops, 
who  might  have  thought  that  the  papal  interest  in  education  was 
merely  personal,  that  the  policy  of  the  church  was  concerned  in 
it  and  recalled  them  to  a  sense  of  duty  in  the  matter,  since  the 
ordinary  enthusiasm  for  letters,  even  with  the  added  encourage- 
ment of  the  Pope,  did  not  suffice  to  make  them  realize  the  neces- 
sity for  educational  establishments. 

The  institution  of  the  schools  of  grammar  in  connection  with 
cathedrals  was  well  adapted  to  bring  about  a  definite  increase  in 
the  opportunities  for  book  learning  for  those  who  desired  it.  In 
connection  with  the  cathedrals  there  was  always  a  band  of  can- 
ons whose  duty  it  was  to  take  part  in  the  singing  of  the  daily 
office.  Their  ceremonial  and  ritual  duties  did  not,  however,  oc- 
cupy them  more  than  a  few  hours  each  day.  During  the  rest  of 
the  time  they  were  free  to  devote  themselves  to  any  subject  in 
which  they  might  be  interested  and  had  ample  time  for  teaching. 
The  requirement  that  there  should  be  at  least  a  school  of  gram- 
mar in  connection  with  every  cathedral  afforded  definite  oppor- 
tunity to  such  of  these  ecclesiastics  as  had  intellectual  tastes  to 
devote  themselves  to  the  spread  of  knowledge  and  of  culture, 
and  this  reacted,  as  can  be  readily  understood,  to  make  the 
whole  band  of  canons  more  interested  in  the  things  of  the  mind, 
and  to  make  the  cathedral  even  more  the  intellectual  center  of 
the  district  than  might  otherwise  have  been  the  case. 

For  the  metropolitan  churches  a  more  far-reaching  regulation 
was  made  by  this  same  council  of  Lateran  under  the  inspiration 
of  the  Pope  himself.  These  important  Archiepiscopal  cathe- 
drals were  required  to  maintain  professors  of  three  chairs.  One 
of  these  was  to  teach  grammar,  a  second  philosophy,  and  a  third 
canon  law.  Under  these  designations  there  was  practically  in- 
cluded much  of  what  is  now  studied  not  only  in  preparatory 


30  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

schools  but  also  at  the  beginning  of  University  courses.  The  reg- 
ulation was  evidently  intended  to  lead  eventually  to  the  forma- 
tion of  many  more  universities  than  were  then  in  existence,  be- 
cause already  it  had  become  clear  that  the  traveling  of  students 
to  long  distances  and  their  gathering  in  such  large  num- 
bers in  towns  away  from  home  influences,  led  to  many  abuses 
that  might  be  obviated  if  they  could  stay  in  their  native  cities,  or 
at  least  did  not  have  to  leave  their  native  provinces.  This  was  a 
far-seeing  regulation  that,  like  so  many  other  decrees  of  the  cen- 
tury, manifests  the  very  practical  policy  of  the  Pope  in  matters 
of  education  as  well  as  charity.  As  a  matte'r  of  fact  this  decree 
did  lead  to  the  gradual  development  of  about  twenty  univer- 
sities during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  to  the  establishment 
of  a  number  of  other  schools  so  important  in  scope  and  attend- 
ance that  their  evolution  into  universities  during  the  Fourteenth 
Century  became  comparatively  easy.  This  formal  church  law, 
moreover,  imposed  upon  ecclesiastical  authorities  the  necessity 
for  providing  for  even  higher  education  in  their  dioceses  and 
made  them  realize  that  it  was  entirely  in  sympathy  with  the 
church's  spirit  and  in  accord  with  the  wish  of  the  Father  of 
Christendom,  that  they  should  make  as  ample  provision  for  edu- 
cation as  they  did  for  charity,  though  this  last  was  supposed  to 
be  their  special  task  as  pastors  of  the  Christian  flock. 

All  this  important  work  for  the  foundation  of  preparatory 
schools  in  every  diocese  and  of  the  preliminary  organization 
of  teaching  institutions  that  might  easily  develop  into  univer- 
sities, as  they  actually  did  in  a  score  of  cases  in  metropolitan 
cities,  was  accomplished  under  the  first  Pope  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  Innocent  III.  His  successors  kept  up  this  good  work. 
Pope  Honorious  III.,  his  immediate  successor,  went  so  far  in 
this  matter  as  to  depose  a  bishop  who  had  not  read  Donatus, 
the  popular  grammarian  of  the  time.  The  bishop  evidently 
was  considered  unfit,  as  far  as  his  mental  training  went,  to  oc- 
cupy the  important  post  of  head  of  a  diocese.  Pope  Gregory 
IX.,  the  nephew  of  Innocent  III.,  was  one  of  the  .»,ost  import- 
ant patrons  of  the  study  of  law  in  this  period  (see  Legal  Ori- 
gins in  Other  Countries),  and  encouraged  the  collection  of  the 
decrees  of  former  Popes  so  as  to  make  them  available  for  pur- 
poses of  study  as  well  as  for  court  use.  He  is  famous  for  hav- 


UNIVERSITIES  AND  SCHOOLS.  31 

ing  protected  the  University  of  Paris  during  some  of  the  seri- 
ous trouble  with  the  municipal  authorities,  when  the  large  in- 
crease of  the  number  of  students  in  attendance  at  the  Univer- 
sity had  unfortunately  brought  about  strained  relations  be- 
tween  town  and  gown. 

Pope  Innocent  IV.  by  several  decrees  encouraged  the  devel- 
opment of  the  University  of  Paris,  increased  its  rights  and 
conferred  new  privileges.  He  also  did  much  to  develop  the 
University  of  Toulouse,  and  especially  to  raise  its  standard  and 
make  it  equal  to  that  of  Paris  as  far  as  possible.  The  patron- 
age of  Toulouse  on  the  part  of  the  Pope  is  all  the  more  striking 
because  the  study  of  civil  law  was  here  a  special  feature  and 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  often  said  to  have  looked 
askance  at  the  rising  prominence  of  civil  law,  since  it  threat- 
ened to  diminish  the  importance  of  canon  law;  and  the  cul- 
tivation of  it,  only  too  frequently,  seemed  to  give  rise  to  fric- 
tion between  civil  and  ecclesiastical  authorities.  While  the  pon- 
tifical court  of  Innocent  IV.  was  maintained  at  Lyons  it  seemed, 
according  to  the  Literary  History  of  France,*  more  like  an 
academy  of  theology  and  of  canon  law  than  the  court  of  a 
great  monarch  whose  power  was  acknowledged  throughout  the 
world,  or  a  great  ecclesiastic  who  might  be  expected  to  be  occu- 
pied with  details  of  Church  government. 

Succeeding  Popes  of  the  century  were  not  less  prominent  in 
their  patronage  of  education.  Pope  Alexander  IV.  supported 
the  cause  of  the  Mendicant  Friars  against  the  University  of 
Paris,  but  this  was  evidently  with  the  best  of  intentions.  The 
mendicants  came  to  claim  the  privilege  of  having  houses  in 
association  with  the  university  in  which  they  might  have  lec- 
tures for  the  members  of  their  orders,  and  asked  for  due  allow- 
ance in  the  matter  of  degrees  for  courses  thus  taken.  The  fac- 
ulty of  the  University  did  not  want  to  grant  this  privilege, 
though  it  was  acknowledged  that  some  of  the  best  professors 
in  the  University  were  members  of  the  Mendicant  orders,  and 
we  need  only  mention  such  names  as  Albertus  Magnus  and 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  from  the  Dominicans,  and  St.  Bonaven- 
lure,  Roger  Bacon  and  Duns  Scotus  from  the  Franciscans,  to 
show  the  truth  of  this  assertion.  To  give  such  a  privilege 

*Histoire  Litteratire  de  la  France,  Vol.  XVI,  Introductory  Discourse. 


32  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

seemed  a  derogation  of  the  faculty  rights  and  the  University 
refused.  Then  the  Holy  See  interfered  to  insist  that  the  Uni- 
versity must  give  degrees  for  work  done,  rather  than  merely  for 
regulation  attendance.  The  best  possible  proof  that  Pope 
Alexander  cannot  be  considered  as  wishing  to  injure  or  even 
diminish  the  prestige  of  the  University  in  any  way,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  he  afterwards  sent  two  of  his  nephews  to 
Paris  to  attend  at  the  University. 

All  these  Popes,  so  far  mentioned,  were  not  Frenchmen  and 
therefore  could  have  no  national  feeling  in  the  matter  of  the 
University  of  Paris  or  of  the  French  universities  in  general.  It 
is  not  surprising  to  find  that  Pope  Urban  IV.,  who  was  a 
Frenchman  and  an  alumnus  of  the  University  of  Pans,  elevated 
many  French  scholars,  and  especially  his  fellow  alumni  of 
Paris,  to  Church  dignitaries  of  various  kinds.  After  Urban 
IV.,  Nicholas  IV.  who  succeeded  him,  though  once  more  an 
Italian,  founded  chairs  in  the  University  of  Montpelier,  and 
also  a  professorship  in  a  school  that  it  was  hoped  would  develop 
into  a  university  at  Gray  in  Franche  Comte.  In  a  word,  looked 
at  from  every  point  of  view,  it  must  be  admitted  that  the 
Church  and  ecclesiastical  authorities  were  quite  as  much  inter- 
ested in  education  as  in  charity  during  this  century,  and  it  is 
to  them  that  must  be  traced  the  foundation  of  the  preparatory 
schools,  as  well  as  the  universities,  and  the  origin  and  develop- 
ment of  the  great  educational  movement  that  stamps  this  cen- 
tury as  the  greatest  in  human  history. 


JACQUES  COEUR'S  HOUSE 
(SOURCES) 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  33 

III 

WHAT  AND  HOW  THEY  STUDIED  AT  THE 
UNIVERSITIES. 


It  is  usually  the  custom  for  text  books  of  education  to  dis- 
miss the  teaching  at  the  universities  of  the  Middle  Ages  with 
some  such  expression  as :  "The  teachers  were  mainly  engaged 
in  metaphysical  speculations  and  the  students  were  occupied 
with  exercises  in  logic  and  in  dialectics,  learning  in  long 
drawn  out  disputations  how  to  use  the  intellectual  instruments 
they  possessed  but  never  actually  applying  them.  All  know- 
ledge was  supposed  to  be  amenable  to  increase  through  dia- 
lectical discussion  and  all  truth  was  supposed  to  be  obtainable 
as  the  conclusion  of  a  regular  syllogism."  Great  fun  especi- 
ally is  made  of  the  long-winded  disputations,  the  time-taking 
public  exercises  in  dialectics,  the  fine  hair-drawn  distinctions 
presumably  with  but  the  scantiest  basis  of  truth  behind  them 
and  in  general  the  placing  of  words  foj  realities  in  the  investi- 
gation of  truth  and  the  conveyance  of  information.  The  sub- 
lime ignorance  of  educators  who  talk  thus  about  the  century 
that  saw  the  rise  of  the  universities  in  connection  with  the 
erection  of  the  great  Cathedrals,  is  only  equaled  by  their 
assumption  of  knowledge. 

It  is  very  easy  to  make  fun  of  a  past  generation  and  often 
rather  difficult  to  enter  into  and  appreciate  its  spirit.  Ridicule 
comes  natural  to  human  nature,  alas!  but  sympathy  requires 
serious  mental  application  for  understanding's  sake.  For- 
tunately there  has  come  in  recent  years  a  very  different  feeling 
in  the  minds  of  many  mature  and  faithful  students  of  this 
period,  as  regards  the  Middle  Ages  and  its  education.  Dia- 
lectics may  seem  to  be  a  waste  of  time  to  those  who  consider 
the  training  of  the  human  mind  as  of  little  value  in  compari- 
son with  the  stocking  of  it  with  information.  Dialectical 
training  will  probably  not  often  enable  men  to  earn  more  money 
than  might  have  otherwise  been  the  case.  This  will  be  emi- 


34  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

nently  true  if  the  dialectician  is  to  devote  himself  to  commer- 
cial enterprises  in  his  future  life.  If  he  is  to  take  up  one  of  the 
professions,  however,  there  may  be  some  doubt  as  to  whether 
even  his  practical  effectiveness  will  not  be  increased  by  a  good 
course  of  logic.  There  is,  however,  another  point  of  view 
from  which  this  matter  of  the  study  of  dialectics  may  be 
viewed,  and  which  has  been  taken  very  well  by  Prof.  Saints- 
bury  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh  in  a  recent  volume  on  the 
Thirteenth  Century. 

He  insists  in  a  passage  which  we  quote  at  length  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Prose  of  the  Century,  that  if  this  training  in 
logic  had  not  been  obtained  at  this  time  in  European  develop- 
ment, the  results  might  have  been  serious  for  our  modern  lan- 
guages and  modern  education.  He  says :  "If  at  the  outset  of  the 
career  of  the  modern  languages,  men  had  thought  with  the 
looseness  of  modern  thought,  had  indulged  in  the  haphazard 
slovenliness  of  modern  logic,  had  popularized  theology  and  vul- 
garized rhetoric,  as  we  have  seen  both  popularized  and  vul- 
garized since,  we  should  indeed  have  been  in  evil  case."  He 
maintains  that  "the  far-reaching  educative  influence  in  mere 
*  language,  in  mere  system  of  arrangement  and  expression,  must 
be  considered  as  one  of  the  great  benefits  of  Scholasticism." 
This  is,  after  all,  only  a  similar  opinion  to  that  evidently  enter- 
tained by  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill,  who,  as  Prof.  Saintsbury  says, 
was  not  often  a  scholastically-minded  philosopher,  for  he  quotes 
in  the  preface  of  his  logic  two  very  striking  opinions  from  very 
different  sources,  the  Scotch  philosopher,  Hamilton,  and  the 
French  philosophical  writer,  Condorcet.  Hamilton  said,  "It  is  to 
the  schoolmen  that  the  vulgar  languages  are  indebted  for  what 
precision  and  analytical  subtlety  they  possess."  Condorcet 
went  even  further  than  this,  and  used  expressions  that  doubt- 
less will  be  a  great  source  of  surprise  to  those  who  do  not  real- 
ize how  much  of  admiration  is  always  engendered  in  those  who 
really  study  the  schoolmen  seriously  and  do  not  take  opinions 
of  them  from  the  chance  reading  of  a  few  scattered  passages, 
or  depend  for  the  data  of  their  judgment  on  some  second-hand 
authority,  who  thought  it  clever  to  .abuse  these  old-time 
thinkers.  Condorcet  thought  them  far  in  advance  of  the  old 
Greek  philosophers  for,  he  said,  "Logic,  ethics,  and  metaphysics 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  35 

itself,  owe  to  scholasticism  a  precision  unknown  to  the  an- 
cients themselves." 

With  regard  to  the  methods  and  contents  of  the  teaching 
in  the  undergraduate  department  of  the  university,  that  is, 
in  what  we  would  now  call  the  arts  department,  there  is  natur- 
ally no  little  interest  at  the  present  time.  Besides  the  stand- 
ards set  up  and  the  tests  required  can  scarcely  fail  to  attract 
attention.  Professor  Turner,  in  his  History  of  Philosophy, 
has  summed  up  much  of  what  we  know  in  this  matter  in  a 
paragraph  so  full  of  information  that  we  quote  it  in  order  to 
give  our  readers  the  best  possible  idea  in  a  compendious  form 
of  these  details  of  the  old-time  education. 

"By  statutes  issued  at  various  times  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century  it  was  provided  that  the  professor  should  read,  that  is 
expound,  the  text  of  certain  standard  authors  in  philosophy 
and  theology.  In  a  document  published  by  Denifle,  (the  dis- 
tinguished authority  on  medieval  universities)  and  by  him  re- 
ferred to  the  year  1252,  we  find  the  following  works  among 
those  prescribed  for  the  Faculty  of  Arts:  Logica  Vetus  (the 
old  Boethian  text  of  a  portion  of  the  Organon,  probably  ac- 
companied by  Porphyry's  Isagoge)  ;  Logica  Nova  (the  new 
translation  of  the  Organon)  ;  Gilbert's  Liber  Sex  Princip- 
orium;  and  Donatus's  Barbarismus.  A  few  years  later  (1255), 
the  following  works  are  prescribed :  Aristotle's  Physics,  Meta- 
physics, De  Anima,  De  Animalibus,  De  Caelo  et  Mundo, 
Meteorica,  the  minor  psychological  treatises  and  some  Arabian 
or  Jewish  works,  such  as  the  Liber  de  Causis  and  De  Differ- 
entia Spirititus  et  Animae." 

"The  first  degree  for  which  the  student  of  arts  presented 
himself  was  that  of  bachelor.  The  candidate  for  this  degree, 
after  a  preliminary  test  called  responsiones  (this  regulation 
went  into  effect  not  later  than  1275),  presented  himself  for 
the  determinatio,  which  was  a  public  defense  of  a  certain 
number  of  theses  against  opponents  chosen  from  the  audience. 
At  the  end  of  the  disputation,  the  defender  summed  up,  or 
determined,  his  conclusions.  After  determining,  the  bach- 
elor resumed  his  studies  for  the  licentiate,  assuming  also  the 
task  of  cursorily  explaining  to  junior  students  some  portion 
of  the  Organon.  The  test  for  the  degree  of  licentiate  consisted 


36  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

in  a  collatio,  or  exposition  of  several  texts,  after  the  manner 
of  the  masters.  The  student  was  now  a  licensed  teacher ;  he  did 
not,  however,  become  magister,  or  master  of  arts,  until  he  had 
delivered  what  was  called  the  inceptio,  or  inaugural  lecture, 
and  was  actually  installed  (birrettatio).  If  he  continued  to 
teach  he  was  called  magister  actu  re  gens;  if  he  departed  from 
the  university  or  took  up  other  work,  he  was  called  magister 
non  regens.  It  may  be  said  that,  as  a  general  rule,  the  course 
of  reading  was :  ( i )  for  the  bachelor's  degree,  grammar,  logic, 
and  psychology;  (2)  for  the  licentiate,  natural  philosophy; 
(3)  for  the  master's  degree,  ethics,  and  the  completion  of  the 
course  of  natural  philosophy." 

Quite  apart  from  the  value  of  its  methods,  however,  scho- 
lasticism in  certain  of  its  features  had  a  value  in  the  material 
which  it  discussed  and  developed  that  modern  generations  only 
too  frequently  fail  to  lealize.  With  regard  to  this  the  same 
distinguished  authority  whom  we  quoted  with  regard  to 
dialectics,  Prof.  Saintsbury,  does  not  hesitate  to  use  expres- 
sions which  will  seem  little  short  of  rankly  heretical  to  those 
who  swear  by  modern  science,  and  yet  may  serve  to  inject 
some  eminently  suggestive  ideas  into  a  sadly  misunderstood 
subject. 

"Yet  there  has  always  in  generous  souls  who  have  some 
tincture  of  philosophy,  subsisted  a  curious  kind  of  sympathy 
and  yearning  over  the  work  of  these  generations  of  mainly 
disinterested  scholars,  who,  whatever  they  were,  were 
thorough,  and  whatever  they  could  not  do,  could  think.  And 
there  have  even,  in  these  latter  days,  been  some  graceless  ones 
who  have  asked  whether  the  Science  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
after  an  equal  interval,  will  be  of  any  more  positive  value — - 
whether  it  will  not  have  even  less  comparative  interest  than 
that  which  appertains  to  the  Scholasticism  of  the  Thirteenth." 

In  the  light  of  this  it  has  seemed  well  to  try  to  show  in  terms 
of  present-day  science  some  of  the  important  reflections  with 
regard  to  such  problems  of  natural  history,  as  magnetism,  the 
composition  of  matter,  and  the  relation  of  things  physical 
to  one  another,  which  we  now  include  under  the  name  science, 
some  of  the  thoughts  that  these  scholars  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury were  thinking  and  were  developing  for  the  benefit  of  the 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  37 

enthusiastic  students  who  flocked  to  the  universities.  We  will 
find  in  such  a  review  though  it  must  necessarily  be  brief  many 
more  anticipations  of  modern  science  than  would  be  thought 
possible. 

To  take  the  example  for  the  moment  of  magnetism  which  is 
usually  considered  to  be  a  subject  entirely  of  modern  attention, 
a  good  idea  of  the  intense  interest  of  this  century  in  things 
scientific,  can  be  obtained  from  the  following  short  paragraph 
in  which  Brother  Potamian  in  his  sketch  of  Petrus  Pere- 
grinus,  condenses  the  references  to  magnetic  phenomena  that 
are  found  in  the  literature  of  the  time.  Most  of  the  writers 
he  mentions  were  not  scientists  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word  but  were  literary  men,  and  the  fact  that  these  references 
occur  shows  very  clearly  that  there  must  have  been  wide- 
spread interest  in  such  scientific  phenomena,  since  they  had 
attracted  the  attention  of  literary  writers,  who  would  not  have 
spoken  of  them  doubtless,  but  that  they  knew  that  in  this  they 
would  be  satisfying  as  well  as  exciting  public  interest. 

"Abbot  Neckam,  the  Augustinian  (1157-1217),  distinguished 
between  the  properties  of  the  two  ends  of  the  lodestone,  and 
gives  in  his  De  Utensilibus,  what  is  perhaps  the  earliest  refer- 
ence to  the  mariner's  compass  that  we  have.  Albertus  Magnus, 
the  Dominican  (1193-1280),  in  his  treatise  De  Mineralibus, 
enumerates  different  kinds  of  natural  magnets  and  states  some 
of  the  properties  commonly  attributed  to  them;  the  minstrel, 
Guyot  de  Provins,  in  a  famous  satirical  poem,  written  about 
1208,  refers  to  the  directive  quality  of  the  lodestone  and  its  use 
in  navigation,  as  do  also  Cardinal  de  Vitry  in  his  Historia  Or- 
ientialis  (1215-1220),  Brunette  Latini,  poet,  orator  and  phil- 
osopher (the  teacher  of  Dante),  in  his  Tresor  des  Sciences, 
a  veritable  library,  written  in  Paris  in  1260;  Raymond  Lully, 
the  enlightened  Doctor,  in  his  treatise,  De  Contemplatione, 
begun  in  1272,  and  Guido  Guinicelli,  the  poet-priest  of  Bol- 
ogna, who  died  in  1276."  * 

The  metaphysics  of  the  medieval  universities  have  come  in 
for  quite  as  much  animadversion,  not  to  say  ridicule,  as  the 

*The  letter  of  Petrus  Peregrinus  on  the  Magnet,  A.  D.  1269,  trans- 
lated by  Bro.  Arnold,  M.  Sc.,  with  an  Introductory  Note  by  Bro.  Pota- 
mian, N.  Y.,  1904. 


38  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

dialectics.  None  of  its  departments  is  spared  in  the  condem- 
nation, though  most  fun  is  made  of  the  gropings  of  the  medie- 
val mind  after  truth  in  the  physical  sciences.  The  cosmology, 
the  science  of  matter  as  it  appealed  to  the  medieval  mind,  is  us- 
ually considered  to  have  been  so  entirely  speculative  as  to  de- 
serve no  further  attention.  We  have  presumably,  learned  so 
much  by  experimental  demonstration  and  original  observation 
in  the  physical  sciences,  that  any  thinking  of  the  medieval 
mind  along  these  lines  may,  in  the  opinion  of  those  who 
know  nothing  of  what  they  speak,  be  set  aside  as  preposter- 
ous, or  at  best  nugatory.  It  will  surely  be  a  source  of  surprise, 
then,  to  find  that  in  the  consideration  of  the  composition  of 
matter  and  of  the  problem  of  the  forces  connected  with  it,  the 
minds  of  the  medieval  schoolmen  were  occupied  with  just  the 
same  questions  that  have  been  most  interesting  to  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  and  that  curiously  enough  the  conclusions  they 
reached,  though  by  very  different  methods  of  investigation, 
were  almost  exactly  the  same  as  those  to  which  modern  phys- 
ical scientists  have  attained  by  their  refined  methods  of  inves- 
tigation. 

One  or  two  examples  will  suffice,  I  think,  to  show  very 
clearly  that  the  students  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  had  pre- 
sented to  them  practically  the  same  problems  with  regard  to 
matter,  its  origin  and  composition,  as  occupy  the  students  of 
the  present  generation.  For  instance  Thomas  Aquinas  usually 
known  as  St.  Thomas,  in  a  series  of  lectures  given  at  the 
University  of  Paris  toward  the  end  of  the  third  quarter 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  stated  as  the  most  import- 
ant conclusion  with  regard  to  matter,  that  "Nihil  omnino 
in  nihilum  redigetur"  "Nothing  at  all  will  ever  be  re- 
duced to  nothingness."  By  this  it  was  very  evident  from 
the  context  that  he  meant  that  matter  would  never  be  annihi- 
lated and  could  never  be  destroyed.  It  might  be  changed  in 
various  ways  but  it  could  never  go  back  into  the  nothingness 
from  which  it  had  been  taken  by  the  creative  act.  Annihila- 
tion was  pronounced  as  not  being  a  part  of  the  scheme  of 
things  as  far  as  the  human  mind  could  hope  to  fathom  its 
meaning. 

Tn  this  sentence,  then,  Thomas  of  Aquin  was  proclaiming  the 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  39 

doctrine  of  the  indestructibility  of  matter.  It  was  not  until 
well  on  in  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  chemists  and  phys- 
icists of  modern  times  realized  the  truth  of  this  great  principle. 
The  chemists  had  seen  matter  change  its  form  in  many  ways, 
had  seen  it  disappear  apparently  in  the  smoke  of  fire  or  evap- 
orate under  the  influence  of  heat,  but  investigation  proved 
that  if  care  were  taken  in  the  collection  of  the  gases  that  came 
off  under  these  circumstances,  of  the  ashes  of  combustion  and 
of  the  residue  of  evaporation,  all  the  original  material  that  had 
been  contained  in  the  supposedly  disappearing  substance 
could  be  recovered  or  at  least  completely  accounted  for.  The 
physicists  on  their  part  had  realized  this  same  truth  and  finally 
there  came  the  definite  enunciation  of  the  absolute  indestructi- 
bility of  matter.  St.  Thomas'  conclusion  "Nothing  at  all  will 
ever  be  reduced  to  nothingness"  had  anticipated  this  doctrine 
by  nearly  seven  centuries.  What  happened  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  was  that  there  came  an  experimental  demonstration 
of  the  truth  of  the  principle.  The  principle  itself,  however, 
had  been  reached  long  before  by  the  human  mind  by  specula- 
tive processes  quite  as  inerrable  in  their  way  as  the  more  mod- 
ern method  of  investigation. 

When  St.  Thomas  used  the  aphorism  "Nothing  at  all  will 
ever  be  reduced  to  nothingness"  there  was  another  significa- 
tion that  he  attached  to  the  words  quite  as  clearly  as  that  by 
which  they  expressed  the  indestructibility  of  matter.  For 
him  Nihil  or  nothing  meant  neither  matter  nor  form,  that  is, 
neither  the  material  substance  nor  the  energy  which  is  con- 
tained in  it.  He  meant  then,  that  no  energy  would  ever  be 
destroyed  as  well  as  no  matter  would  ever  be  annihilated.  He 
was  teaching  the  conservation  of  energy  as  well  as  the  inde- 
structibility of  matter.  Here  once  more  the  experimental  dem- 
onstration of  the  doctrine  was  delayed  for  over  six  centuries 
and  a  half.  The  truth  itself,  however,  had  been  reached  by 
this  medieval  master-mind  and  was  the  subject  of  his  teaching 
to  the  university  students  in  Paris  in  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
These  examples  should,  I  think,  serve  to  illustrate  that  the 
minds  of  medieval  students  were  occupied  with  practically 
the  same  questions  as  those  which  are  now  taught  to  the  uni- 
versity students  of  our  day.  There  are,  however,  some  even 


40  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

more  striking  anticipations  of  modern  teaching  that  will  serve 
to  demonstrate  this  community  of  educational  interests  in 
spite  of  seven  centuries  of  time  separation. 

In  recent  years  we  have  come  to  realize  that  matter  is  not  the 
manifold  material  we  were  accustomed  to  think  it  when  we  ac- 
cepted the  hypothesis  that  there  were  some  seventy  odd  differ- 
ent kinds  of  atoms,  each  one  absolutely  independent  of  any 
other  and  representing  an  ultimate  term  in  science.  The  atomic 
theory  from  this  standpoint  has  proved  to  be  only  a  working  hy- 
pothesis that  was  useful  for  a  time,  but  that  our  physicists  are 
now  agreed  must  not  be  considered  as  something  absolute.  Ra- 
dium has  been  observed  changing  into  helium  and  the  relations 
of  atoms  to  one  another  as  they  are  now  known,  make  it  almost 
certain  that  all  of  them  have  an  underlying  sub-stratum  the  same 
in  all,  but  differentiated  by  the  dynamic  energies  with  which 
matter  in  its  different  forms  is  gifted.  Sir  Oliver  Lodge  has  sta- 
ted this  theory  of  the  constitution  of  matter  very  clearly  in  re- 
cent years,  and  in  doing  so  has  only  been  voicing  the  practically 
universal  sentiment  of  those  who  have  been  following  the  latest 
developments  in  the  physical  sciences.  Strange  as  it  may  ap- 
pear, this  was  exactly  the  teaching  of  Aquinas  and  the  school- 
men with  regard  to  the  constitution  of  matter.  They  said  that 
the  two  constituting  principles  of  matter  were  prime  matter 
and  form.  By  prime  matter  they  meant  the  material  sub-strat- 
um the  same  in  all  material  things.  By  form  they  meant  the 
special  dynamic  energy  which,  entering  into  prime  matter, 
causes  it  to  act  differently  from  other  kinds  and  gives  it  all  the 
particular  qualities  by  which  we  recognize  it.  This  theory  was 
not  original  with  them,  having  been  adopted  from  Aristotle,  but 
it  was  very  clearly  set  forth,  profoundly  discussed,  and  amply 
illustrated  by  the  schoolmen.  In  its  development  this  theory 
was  made  to  be  of  the  greatest  help  in  the  explanation  of  many 
other  difficulties  with  regard  to  living  as  well  as  non-living 
things  in  their  hands.  The  theory  has  its  difficulties,  but  they 
are  less  than  those  of  any  other  theory  of  the  constitution  of 
matter,  and  it  has  been  accepted  by  more  philosophic  thinkers 
since  the  Thirteenth  Century  than  any  other  doctrine  of  similar 
nature.  It  may  be  said  that  it  was  reached  only  by  deduction 
and  not  by  experimental  observation.  Such  an  expression,  how- 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  41 

ever,  instead  of  being  really  an  objection  is  rather  a  demonstra- 
tion of  the  fact  that  great  truths  may  be  reached  by  deduction 
yet  only  demonstrated  by  inductive  methods  many  centuries 
later. 

Of  course  it  may  well  be  said  even  after  all  these  communi- 
ties of  interest  between  the  medieval  and  the  modern  teaching 
of  the  general  principles  of  science  has  been  pointed  out,  that 
the  universities  of  the  Middle  Ages  did  not  present  the  sub- 
jects under  discussion  in  a  practical  way,  and  their  teaching 
was  not  likely  to  lead  to  directly  beneficial  results  in  applied 
science.  It  might  well  be  responded  to  this,  that  it  is  not  the 
function  of  a  university  to  teach  applications  of  science  but 
only  the  great  principles,  the  broad  generalizations  that  un- 
derlie scientific  thinking,  leaving  details  to  be  filled  in  in  what- 
ever form  of  practical  work  the  man  may  take  up.  Very  few 
of  those,  however,  who  talk  about  the  purely  speculative  char- 
acter of  medieval  teaching  have  manifestly  ever  made  it  their 
business  to  know  anything  about  the  actual  facts  of  old-time 
university  teaching  by  definite  knowledge,  but  have  rather 
allowed  themselves  to  be  guided  by  speculation  and  by  inade- 
quate second-hand  authorities,  whose  dicta  they  have  never 
taken  the  trouble  to  substantiate  by  a  glance  at  contemporary 
authorities  on  medieval  matters. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  quote  for  the  information  of  such 
men,  the  opinion  of  the  greatest  of  medieval  scientists  with 
regard  to  the  reason  why  men  do  not  obtain  real  knowledge 
more  rapidly  than  would  seem  ought  to  be  the  case,  from  the 
amount  of  work  which  they  have  devoted  to  obtaining  it. 
Roger  Bacon,  summing  up  for  Pope  Clement  the  body  of 
doctrine  that  he  was  teaching  at  the  University  of  Oxford 
in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  starts  out  with  the  principle  that 
there  are  four  grounds  of  human  ignorance..  "These  are  first, 
trust  in  inadequate  authority;  second,  the  force  of  custom 
which  leads  men  to  accept  too  unquestioningly  what  has  been 
accepted  before  their  time;  third,  the  placing  of  confidence 
in  the  opinion  of  the  inexperienced;  and  fourth,  the  hiding  of 
one's  own  ignorance  with  the  parade  of  a  superficial  wisdom." 
Surely  no  one  will  ever  be  able  to  improve  on  these  four 
grounds  for  human  ignorance,  and  they  continue  to  be  as  im- 


42  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

portant  in  the  twentieth  century  as  they  were  in  the  Thirteenth. 
They  could  only  have  emanated  from  an  eminently  practical 
mind,  accustomed  to  test  by  observation  and  by  careful  search- 
ing of  authorities,  every  proposition  that  came  to  him.  Pro- 
fessor Henry  Morley,  Professor  of  English  Literature  at 
University  College,  London,  says  of  these  grounds  for  ignor- 
ance of  Roger  Bacon,  in  his  English  Writers,  Volume  III,  page 
321 :  "No  part  of  that  giound  has  yet  been  cut  away  from  be- 
neath the  feet  of  students,  although  six  centuries  ago  the  Ox- 
ford friar  clearly  pointed  out  its  character.  We  still  make 
sheep  wa-lks  of  second,  third,  and  fourth  and  fiftieth-hand  ref- 
erences to  authority;  still  we  are  the  slaves  of  habit;  still  we 
are  found  following  too  frequently  the  untaught  crowd;  still 
we  flinch  from  the  righteous  and  wholesome  phrase,  'I  do  not 
know' ;  and  acquiesce  actively  in  the  opinion  of  others  that  we 
know  what  we  appear  to  know.  Substitute  honest  research, 
original  and  independent  thought,  strict  truth  in  the  compar- 
ison of  only  what  we  really  know  with  what  is  really  known 
by  others,  and  the  strong  redoubt  of  ignorance  has  fallen." 

The  number  of  things  which  Roger  Bacon  succeeded  in 
discovering  by  the  application  of  the  principle  of  testing  every- 
thing by  personal  observation,  is  almost  incredible  to  a  modern 
student  of  science  and  of  education  who  has  known  nothing 
before  of  the  progress  in  science  made  by  this  wonderful  man. 
He  has  been  sometimes  declared  to  be  the  discoverer  of  gun- 
powder, but  this  is  a  mistake  since  it  was  known  many  years 
before  by  the  Arabs  and  by  them  introduced  into  Europe. 
He  did  study  explosives  very  deeply,  however,  and  besides 
learning  many  things  about  them  realized  how  much  might  be 
accomplished  by  their  use  in  the  after-time.  He  declares  in  his 
Opus  Magnum :  "That  one  may  cause  to  burst  forth  from 
bronze,  thunderbolts  more  formidable  than  those  produced 
by  nature.  A  small  quantity  of  prepared  matter  occasions  a 
terrible  explosion  accompanied  by  a  brilliant  light.  One  may 
multiply  this  phenomenon  so  far  as  to  destroy  a  city  or  an 
army."  Considering  how  little  was  known  about  gunpowder 
at  this  time,  this  was  of  itself  a  marvelous  anticipation  of  what 
might  be  accomplished  by  it. 

Bacon  prophesied,  however,  much   more   than   merely   de- 


RATHHAUS  (TANGERMUNDE) 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  43 

structive  effects  from  the  use  of  high  explosives,  and  indeed 
it  is  almost  amusing  to  see  how  closely  he  anticipated  some 
of  the  most  modern  usages  of  high  explosives  for  motor  pur- 
poses. He  seems  to  have  concluded  that  some  time  the  appar- 
ently uncontrollable  forces  of  explosion  would  come  under  the 
control  of  man  and  be  harnessed  by  him  for  his  own  purposes. 
He  realized  that  one  of  the  great  applications  of  such  a  force 
would  be  for  transportation.  Accordingly  he  said:  "Art 
can  construct  instruments  of  navigation  such  that  the  largest 
vessels  governed  by  a  single  man  will  traverse  rivers  and  seas 
more  rapidly  than  if  they  were  rilled  with  oarsmen.  One  may 
also  make  carriages  which  without  the  aid  of  any  animal  will 
run  with  remarkable  swiftness."*  When  we  recall  that  the  very- 
latest  thing  in  transportation  are  motor-boats  and  automobiles 
driven  by  gasoline,  a  high  explosive,  Roger  Bacon's  prophesy 
becomes  one  of  these  weird  anticipations  of  human  progress 
which  seem  almost  more  than  human. 

It  was  not  with  regard  to  explosives  alone,  however,  that 
Roger  Bacon  was  to  make  great  advances  and  still  more  mar- 
velous anticipations  in  physical  science.  He  was  not,  as  is 
sometimes  claimed  for  him,  either  the  inventor  of  the  telescope 
or  of  the  theory  of  lenses.  He  did  more,  however,  than  per- 
haps anyone  else  to  make  the  principles  of  lenses  clear  and  to 
establish  them  on  a  mathematical  basis.  His  traditional  con- 
nection with  the  telescope  can  probably  be  traced  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  very  much  interested  in  astronomy  and  the  rela- 
tions of  the  heavens  to  the  earth.  He  pointed  out  very  clearly 
the  errors  which  had  crept  into  the  Julian  calendar,  calcu- 
lated exactly  how  much  of  a  correction  was  needed  in  order 
to  restore  the  year  to  its  proper  place,  and  suggested  the 
method  by  which  future  errors  of  this  kind  could  be  avoided. 
His  ideas  were  too  far  beyond  his  century  to  be  applied  in  a 
practical  way,  but  they  were  not  to  be  without  their  effect  and  it 
is  said  that  they  formed  the  basis  of  the  subsequent  correction 
of  the  calendar  in  the  time  of  Pope  Gregory  XIII  three  cen- 
turies later. 

*  These  quotations  are  taken  from  Ozanam's  Dante  and  Catholic 
Philosophy,  published  by  the  Cathedral  Library  Association,  New 
York,  1897. 


44  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

It  is  rather  surprising  to  find  how  much  besides  the  theory 
of  lenses  Friar  Bacon  had  succeeded  in  finding  out  in  the  de- 
partment of  optics.  He  taught,  for  instance,  the  principle  of 
the  aberration  of  light,  and,  still  more  marvelous  to  consider, 
taught  that  light  did  not  travel  instantaneously  but  had  a  def- 
inite rate  of  motion,  though  this  was  extremely  rapid.  It  is 
rather  difficult  to  understand  how  he  reached  this  conclusion 
since  light  travels  so  fast  that  as  far  as  regards  any  observation 
that  can  be  made  upon  earth,  the  diffusion  is  practically  in- 
stantaneous. It  was  not  for  over  three  centuries  later  that 
Romer,  the  German  astronomer,  demonstrated  the  motion 
of  light  and  its  rate,  by  his  observations  upon  the  moons  of 
Jupiter  at  different  phases  of  the  earth's  orbit,  which  showed 
that  the  light  of  these  moons  took  a  definite  and  quite  appreci- 
able time  to  reach  the  earth  after  their  eclipse  by  the  planet 
was  over. 

We  are  not  surprised  to  find  that  Bacon  should  praise  those 
of  his  contemporaries  who  devoted  themselves  to  mathe- 
matics and  to  experimental  observations  in  science.  Of  one 
of  his  correspondents  who  even  from  distant  Italy  sent  him 
his  observations  in  order  that  he  might  have  the  great  Fran- 
ciscan's precious  comments  on  them,  Bacon  has  given  quite 
a  panegyric.  The  reasons  for  his  praise,  however,  are  so  dif- 
ferent from  those  which  are  ordinarily  proclaimed  to  have 
been  the  sources  of  laudation  in  distant  medieval  scientific 
circles,  that  we  prefer  to  quote  Bacon's  own  words  from  the 
Opus  Tertium.  Bacon  is  talking  of  Petrus  Peregrinus  and 
says :  "I  know  of  only  one  person  who  deserves  praise  for 
his  work  in  experimental  philosophy,  for  he  does  not  care  for 
the  discourses  of  men  and  their  wordy  warfare,  but  quietly 
and  diligently  pursues  the  works  of  wisdom.  Therefore,  what 
others  grope  after  blindly,  as  bats  in  the  evening  twilight,  this 
man  contemplates  in  all  their  brilliancy  because  he  is  a  master 
of  experiment.  Hence,  he  knows  all  natural  science  whether 
pertaining  to  medicine  and  alchemy,  or  to  matters  celestial 
and  terrestrial. 

"He  has  worked  diligently  in  the  smelting  of  ores  as  also  in 
the  working  of  minerals ;  he  is  thoroughly  acquainted  with  all 
sorts  of  arms  and  implements  used  in  military  service  and  in 


CATHEDRAL  (YORK) 


CATHEDRAL,  (HEREFORD) 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  45 

hunting,  besides  which  he  is  skilled  in  agriculture  and  in  the 
measurement  of  lands.  It  is  impossible  to  write  a  useful  or 
correct  treatise  in  experimental  philosophy  without  mention- 
ing this  man's  name.  Moreover,  he  pursues  knowledge  for 
its  own  sake;  for  if  he  wished  to  obtain  royal  favor,  he  could 
easily  find  sovereigns  who  would  honor  and  enrich  him." 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  these  expressions  of  laudatory 
appreciation  of  the  great  Thirteenth  Century  scientist  are  dic- 
tated more  by  the  desire  to  magnify  his  work  and  to  bring  out 
the  influence  in  science  of  the  Churchmen  of  the  period,  it 
seems  well  to  quote  an  expression  of  opinion  from  the  modern 
historian  of  the  inductive  sciences,  whose  praise  is  scarcely  if 
any  less  outspoken  than  that  of  others  whom  we  have  quoted 
and  who  might  be  supposed  to  be  somewhat  partial  in  their 
judgment.  This  opinion  will  fortify  the  doubters  who  must 
have  authority  and  at  the  same  time  sums  up  very  excellently 
the  position  which  Roger  Bacon  occupies  in  the  History  of 
Science. 

Dr.  Whewell  says  that  Roger  Bacon's  Opus  Ma  jus  is  "the 
encyclopedia  and  Novam  Organon  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
a  work  equally  wonderful  with  regard  to  its  general  scheme 
and  to  the  special  treatises  with  which  the  outlines  of  the  plans 
are  filled  up.  The  professed  object  of  the  work  is  to  urge  the 
necessity  of  a  reform  in  the  mode  of  philosophizing,  to  set 
forth  the  reasons  why  knowledge  had  not  made  a  greater  pro- 
gress, to  draw  back  attention  to  the  sources  of  knowledge  which 
had  been  unwisely  neglected,  to  discover  other  sources  which 
were  yet  almost  untouched,  and  to  animate  men  in  the  under- 
taking by  a  prospect  of  the  vast  advantages  which  it  offered. 
In  the  development  of  this  plan  all  the  leading  portions  of 
science  are  expanded  in  the  most  complete  shape  which  they 
had  at  that  time  assumed ;  and  improvements  of  a  very  wide 
and  striking  kind  are  proposed  in  some  of  the  principal  bran- 
ches of  study.  Even  if  the  work  had  no  leading  purposes  it 
would  have  been  highly  valuable  as  a  treasure  of  the  most 
solid  knowledge  and  soundest  speculations  of  the  time ;  even  if 
it  had  contained  no  such  details  it  would  have  been  a  work 
most  remarkable  for  its  general  views  and  scope." 

It  is  only  what  might  have  been  expected,  however,  from 


46  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Roger  Bacon's  training  that  he  should  have  made  great  pro- 
gress in  the  physical  sciences.  At  the  University  of  Paris  his 
favorite  teacher  was  Albertus  Magnus,  who  was  himself 
deeply  interested  in  all  the  physical  sciences,  though  he  was 
more  concerned  with  the  study  of  chemical  problems  than  of 
the  practical  questions  which  were  to  occupy  his  greatest  pupil. 
There  is  no  doubt  at  all  that  Albertus  Magnus  accomplished 
a  great  amount  of  experimental  work  in  chemistry  and  had 
made  a  large  series  of  actual  observations.  He  was  a  theolo- 
gian as  well  as  a  philosopher  and  a  scientist.  Some  idea  of  the 
immense  industry  of  the  man  can  be  obtained  from  the  fact 
that  his  complete  works  as  published  consist  of  some  twenty 
large  folio  volumes,  each  one  of  which  contains  on  the  aver- 
age at  least  500,000  words. 

Among  these  works  are  many  treatises  relating  to  chemis- 
try. The  titles  of  some  of  them  will  serve  to  show  'how  explicit 
was  Albert  in  his  consideration  of  various  chemical  subjects. 
He  has  treatises  concerning  Metals  and  Minerals ;  concerning 
Alchemy;  A  Treatise  on  the  Secret  of  Chemistry;  A  Concor- 
dance, that  is  a  Collection  of  observations  from  many  sources 
with  regard  to  the  Philosopher's  Stone;  A  Brief  Compend  on 
the  Origin  of  the  Metals ;  A  Treatise  on  Compounds ;  most  of 
these  are  to  be  found  in  his  works  under  the  general  heading 
"Theatrum  Chemicum." 

It  is  not  surprising  for  those  who  know  of  Albert's  work, 
to  find  that  his  pupil  Roger  Bacon  defined  the  limits  of  chemis- 
try very  accurately  and  showed  that  he  understood  exactly 
what  the  subject  and  methods  of  investigation  must  be,  in 
order  that  advance  should  be  made  in  it.  Of  chemistry  he 
speaks  in  his  "Opus  Tertium"  in  the  following  words :  "There 
is  a  science  which  treats  of  the  generation  of  things  from  their 
elements  and  of  all  inanimate  things,  as  of  the  elements  and 
liquids,  simple  and  compound,  common  stones,  gems  and 
marble,  gold  and  other  metals,  sulphur,  salts,  pigments,  lapis 
lazuli,  minium  and  other  colors,  oils,  bitumen,  and  infinite 
more  of  which  we  find  nothing  in  the  books  of  Aristotle ;  nor 
are  the  natural  philosophers  nor  any  of  the  Latins  acquainted 
with  these  things." 

In  physics  Albertus  Magnus  was,  if  possible,  more  advanced 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  47 

and  progressive  even  than  in  chemistry.  His  knowledge  in 
the  physical  sciences  was  not  merely  speculative,  but  partook 
to  a  great  degree  of  the  nature  of  what  we  now  call  applied 
science.  Humboldt,  the  distinguished  German  natural  phil- 
osopher of  the  beginning  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  who  was 
undoubtedly  the  most  important  leader  in  scientific  thought 
in  his  time  and  whose  own  work  was  great  enough  to  have  an 
enduring  influence  in  spite  of  the  immense  progress  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  has  summed  up  Albert's  work  and  given 
the  headings  under  which  his  scientific  research  must  be  con- 
sidered. He  says : 

"Albertus  Magnus  was  equally  active  and  influential  in  pro- 
moting the  study  of  natural  science  and  of  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy.  His  works  contain  some  exceedingly  acute 
remarks  on  the  organic  structure  and  physiology  of  plants. 
One  of  his  works  bearing  the  title  of  'Liber  Cosmo- 
graphicus  de  Natura  Locorum,'  is  a  species  of  physical 
geography.  I  have  found  in  it  considerations  on  the  depend- 
ence of  tem[  ^rature  concurrently  on  latitude  and  elevation, 
and  on  the  effect  of  different  angles  of  incidence  of  the  sun's 
rays  in  heating  the  ground,  which  have  excited  my  surprise." 

To  take  up  some  of  Humboldt's  headings  in  their  order 
and  illustrate  them  by  quotations  from  Albert  himself  and 
from  condensed  accounts  as  they  appear  in  his  biographer  Sig- 
hart  and  in  Christian  Schools  and  Scholars*,  will  serve  to  show 
at  once  the  extent  of  Albert's  knowledge  and  the  presumptu- 
ous ignorance  of  those  who  make  little  of  the  science  of  the 
medieval  period.  When  we  have  catalogued,  for  instance,  the 
many  facts  with  regard  to  astronomy  and  the  physics  of  light 
that  are  supposed  to  have  come  to  human  ken  much  later,  yet 
may  be  seen  to  have  been  clearly  within  the  range  of  Albert's 
knowledge,  and  evidently  formed  the  subject  of  his  teaching  at 
various  times  at  both  Paris  and  Cologne,  for  they  are  found  in 
his  authentic  works,  we  can  scarcely  help  but  be  amused  at  the 
pretentious  misconception  that  has  relegated  their  author  to  a 
place  in  education  so  trivial  as  is  that  which  is  represented 
in  many  minds  by  the  term  scholastic. 

"He   decides   that  the   Milky  Way   is  nothing  but  a  vast 

*  Christian  Schools  and  Scholars,  Drame. 


48  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

assemblage  of  stars,  but  supposes  naturally  enough  that  they 
occupy  the  orbit  which  receives  the  light  of  the  sun.  The 
figures  visible  on  the  moon's  disc  are  not,  he  says,  as  hitherto 
has  been  supposed,  reflections  of  the  seas  and  mountains  of  the 
earth,  but  configurations  of  her  own  surface.  He  notices,  in 
order  to  correct  it,  the  assertion  of  Aristotle  that  lunar  rain- 
bows appear  only  twice  in  fifty  years ;  'I  myself/  he  says  have 
observed  two  in  a  single  year/  He  has  something  to  say  on  the 
refraction  of  a  solar  ray,  notices  certain  crystals  which  have 
a  power  of  refraction,  and  remarks  that  none  of  the  ancients 
and  few  moderns  were  acquainted  with  the  properties  of 
mirrors." 

Albert's  great  pupil  Roger  Bacon  is  rightly  looked  upon  as 
the  true  father  of  inductive  science,  an  honor  that  history  has 
unfortunately  taken  from  him  to  confer  it  undeservedly  on 
his  namesake  of  four  centuries  later,  but  the  teaching  out  of 
which  Roger  Bacon  was  to  develop  the  principles  of  experi- 
mental science  can  be  found  in  many  places  in  his  master's 
writings.  In  Albert's  tenth  book,  wherein  he  catalogues  and 
describes  all  the  trees,  plants,  and  herbs  known  in  his  time, 
he  observes  :  "All  that  is  here  set  down  is  the  result  of  our  own 
experience,  or  has  been  borrowed  from  authors  whom  we 
know  to  have  written  what  their  personal  experience  has  con- 
firmed  :  for  in  these  matters  experience  alone  can  give  cer- 
tainty" (experimentum  solum  certificat  in  talibus).  "Such  an 
expression,"  says  his  biographer,  "which  might  have  proceeded 
from  the  pen  of  (Francis)  Bacon,  argues  in  itself  a  prodigious 
scientific  progress,  and  shows  that  the  medieval  friar  was  on 
the  track  so  successfully  pursued  by  modern  natural  philos- 
ophy. He  had  fairly  shaken  off  the  shackles  which  had 
hitherto  tied  up  discovery,  and  was  the  slave  neither  of  Pliny 
nor  of  Aristotle." 

Botany  is  supposed  to  be  a  very  modern  science  and  to  most 
people  Humboldt's  expression  that  he  found  in  Albertus 
Magnus's  writings  some  "exceedingly  acute  remarks  on  the 
organic  structure  and  physiology  of  plants"  will  come  as  a 
supreme  surprise.  A  few  details  with  regard  to  Albert's 
botanical  knowledge,  however,  will  serve  to  heighten  that  sur- 
prise and  to  show,  that  the  foolish  tirades  of  modern  sciolists, 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  49 

who  have  often  expressed  their  wonder  that  with  all  the 
beauties  of  nature  around  them,  these  scholars  of  the  Middle 
Ages  did  not  devote  themselves  to  nature  study,  are  absurd, 
because  if  the  critics  but  knew  it  there  was  profound  interest 
in  nature  and  all  her  manifestations  and  a  series  of  discoveries 
that  anticipated  not  a  little  of  what  we  consider  most  impor- 
tant in  our  modern  science.  The  story  of  Albert's  botanical 
knowledge  has  been  told  in  a  single  very  full  paragraph  by  his 
biographer.  Sighart  also  quotes  an  appreciative  opinion  from 
a  modern  German  botanist  which  will  serve  to  dispel  any 
doubts  with  regard  to  Albert's  position  in  botany  that  modern 
students  might  perhaps  continue  to  harbor,  unless  they  had 
good  authority  to  support  their  opinion,  though  of  course  it 
will  be  remembered  that  the  main  difference  between  the 
medieval  and  the  modern  mind  is  only  too  often  said  to  be, 
that  the  medieval  required  an  authority  while  the  modern 
makes  its  opinion  for  itself.  Even  the  most  skeptical  of  mod- 
ern minds  however,  will  probably  be  satisfied  by  the  following 
paragraph. 

"He  was  acquainted  with  the  sleep  of  plants,  with  the  peri- 
odical opening  and  closing  of  blossoms,  with  the  diminution 
of  sap  through  evaporation  from  the  cuticle  of  the  leaves,  and 
with  the  influence  of  the  distribution  of  the  bundles  of  vessels 
on  the  folial  indentations.  His  minute  observations  on  the 
forms  and  variety  of  plants  intimate  an  exquisite  sense  of 
floral  beauty.  He  distinguished  the  star  from  the  bell-floral, 
tells  us  that  a  red  rose  will  turn  white  when  submitted  to  the 
vapor  of  sulphur,  and  makes  some  very  sagacious  observations 
on  the  subject  of  germination.  .  .  .  The  extraordinary 
erudition  and  originality  of  this  treatise  (his  tenth  book)  has 
drawn  from  M.  Meyer  the  following  comment:  'No  Botan- 
ist who  lived  before  Albert  can  be  compared  to  him,  unless 
Theophrastus,  with  whom  he  was  not  acquainted;  and  after 
him  none  has  painted  nature  in  such  living  colors  or  studied 
it  so  profoundly  until  the  time  of  Conrad  Gesner  and  Cesal- 
pino/  All  honor,  then,  to  the  man  who  made  such  astonishing 
progress  in  the  science  of  nature  as  to  find  no  one,  I  will  not 
say  to  surpass,  but  even  to  equal  him  for  the  space  of  three 


50  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

We  point  out  in  the  chapter  on  Geography  and  Exploration 
how  much  this  wonderful  Thirteenth  Century  added  to  the 
knowledge  of  geographical  science.  Even  before  the  great 
explorers  of  this  time,  however,  had  accomplished  their  work, 
this  particular  branch  of  science  had  made  such  great  progress 
as  would  bring  it  quite  within  the  domain  of  what  we  call  the 
science  of  geography  at  the  present  time.  When  we  remem- 
ber how  much  has  been  said  about  the  ignorance  of  the  men  of 
the  later  Middle  Ages  as  regards  the  shape  of  the  earth  and  its 
inhabitants,  and  how  many  foolish  notions  they  are  supposed 
to  have  accepted  with  regard  to  the  limitation  of  possible  resi- 
dents of  the  world  and  the  queer  ideas  as  to  the  antipodes,  the 
following  passages  taken  from  Albert's  biographer  will  serve 
better  than  anything  else  to  show  how. absurdly  the  traditional 
notions  with  regard  to  this  time  and  its  knowledge,  have  been 
permitted  by  educators  to  tinge  what  are  supposed  to  be  seri- 
ous opinions  with  regard  to  the  subject  matters  of  education  in 
that  early  university  period  : 

"He  treats  as  fabulous  the  commonly-received  idea,  in  which 
Bede  had  acquiesced,  that  the  region  of  the  earth  south  of  the 
equator  was  uninhabitable,  and  considers,  that  from  the  equa- 
tor to  the  South  Pole,  the  earth  was  not  only  habitable,  but  in 
all  probability  actually  inhabited,  except  directly  at  the  poles, 
where  he  imagines  the  cold  to  be  excessive.  If  there  be  any 
animals  there,  he  says,  they  must  have  very  thick  skins  to  de- 
fend them  from  the  rigor  of  the  climate,  and  they  are  probably 
of  a  white  color.  The  intensity  of  cold,  is  however,  tempered 
by  the  action  of  the  sea.  He  describes  the  antipodes  and  the 
countries  they  comprise,  and  divides  the  climate  of  the  earth 
into  seven  zones.  He  smiles  with  a  scholar's  freedom  at  the 
simplicity  of  those  who  suppose  that  persons  living  at  the 
opposite  region  of  the  earth  must  fall  off,  an  opinion  that  can 
only  rise  out  of  the  grossest  ignorance,  'for  when  we  speak  of 
the  lower  hemisphere,  this  must  be  understood  merely  as  rela- 
tively to  ourselves.'  It  is  as  a  geographer  that  Albert's  superi- 
ority to  the  writers  of  his  own  time  chiefly  appears.  Bearing 
in  mind  the  astonishing  ignorance  which  then  prevailed  on 
this  subject,  it  is  truly  admirable  to  find  him  correctly  tracing 
the  chief  mountain  chains  of  Europe,  with  the  rivers  which  take 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  51 

their  source  in  each;  remarking  on  portions  of  coast  which 
have  in  later  times  been  submerged  by  the  ocean,  and  islands 
which  have  been  raised  by  volcanic  action  above  the  level  of 
the  sea;  noticing  the  modification  of  climate  caused  by  moun- 
tains, seas  and  forests,  and  the  division  of  the  human  race 
whose  differences  he  ascribes  to  the  effect  upon  them  of  the 
countries  they  inhabit!  In  speaking  of  the  British  Isles  he 
alludes  to  the  commonly-received  idea  that  another  distant 
island  called  Tile  or  Thule,  existed  far  in  the  Western  Ocean, 
uninhabitable  by  reason  of  its  frightful  climate,  but  which,  he 
says,  has  perhaps  not  yet  been  visited  by  man." 

Nothing  will  so  seriously  disturb  the  complacency  of  modern 
minds  as  to  the  wonderful  advances  that  have  been  made  in  the 
last  century  in  all  branches  of  physical  science  as  to  read  Al- 
bertus  Magnus'  writings.  Nothing  can  be  more  wholesomely 
chastening  of  present  day  conceit  than  to  get  a  proper  appre- 
ciation of  the  extent  of  the  knowledge  of  the  Schoolmen. 

Albertus  Magnus'  other  great  pupil  besides  Roger  Bacon  was 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  If  any  suspicion  were  still  left  that 
Thomas  did  not  appreciate  just  what  the  significance  of  his 
teachings  in  physics  was,  when  he  announced  that  neither  mat- 
ter nor  force  could  ever  be  reduced  to  nothingness,  it  would 
surely  be  removed  by  the  consideration  that  lie  had  been  for 
many  years  in  intimate  relations  with  Albert  and  that  he  had 
probably  also  been  close  to  Roger  Bacon.  After  association 
with  such  men  as  these,  any  knowledge  he  displays  with 
regard  to  physical  science  can  scarcely  be  presumed  to  have 
been  stumbled  upon  unawares.  St.  Thomas  himself  has 
left  three  treatises  on  chemical  subjects  and  it  is 
said  that  the  first  occurrence  of  the  word  amalgam 
can  be  traced  to  one  of  these  treatises.  Everybody  was  as 
much  interested  then,  as  we  are  at  the  present  time,  in  the  trans- 
formation of  metals  and  mercury  with  its  silvery  sheen,  its 
facility  to  enter  into  metallic  combinations  of  all  kinds,  and 
its  elusive  ways,  naturally  made  it  the  center  of  scientific  in- 
terest quite  as  radium  is  at  the  present  moment .  Further 
material  with  regard  to  St.  Thomas  and  also  to  the  subject  of 
education  will  be  found  in  the  chapter,  Aquinas  the  Scholar. 

After  this  brief  review  of  only  a  few  of  the  things  that  they 
taught  in  science  at  the  Thirteenth  Century  universities,  most 


52  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

people  will  scarcely  fail  to  wonder  how  such  peculiar  errone- 
ous impressions  with  regard  to  the  uselessness  of  university 
teaching  and  training  have  come  to  be  so  generally  accepted. 
The  fault  lies,  of  course,  with  those  who  thought  they  knew 
something  about  university  teaching,  and  who,  because  they 
found  a  few  things  that  now  look  ridiculous,  as  certain  sup- 
posed facts  of  one  generation  always  will  to  succeeding  genera- 
tions who  know  more  about  them,  thought  they  could  conclude 
from  these  as  to  the  character  of  the  whole  content  of  medieval 
education.  It  is  only  another  example  of  what  Artemus  WarQ 
pointed  out  so  effectively  when  he  said  that  "there  is  nothing 
that  makes  men  so  ridiculous  as  the  knowing  so  many  things 
that  aint  so."  We  have  been  accepting  without  question  ever 
so  many  things  that  simply  are  not  so  with  regard  to  these 
wonderful  generations,  who  not  only  organized  the  universi- 
ties but  organized  the  teaching  in  them  on  lines  not  very  differ- 
ent from  those  which  occupy  people  seven  centuries  later. 

What  would  be  the  most  amusing  feature,  if  it  were  not  un- 
fortunately so  serious  an  arraignment  of  the  literature  that  has 
grown  up  around  these  peculiar  baseless  notions  with  regard 
to  scholastic  philosophy,  is  the  number  of  men  of  science  who 
have  permitted  themselves  to  make  fun  of  certain  supposed 
lucubrations  of  the  great  medieval  philosophers.  It  is  not  so 
very  long  ago  that,  as  pointed  out  by  Harper  in  the  Meta- 
physics of  the  School,  Professor  Tate  in  a  lecture  on  Some 
Recent  Advances  in  Physical  Science  repeated  the  old  slan- 
der that  even  Aquinas  occupied  the  attention  of  his  students 
with  such  inane  questions  PS:  "How  many  angels  could  dance 
on  the  point  of  a  needle?"  Modern  science  very  proudly  in- 
sists that  it  occupies  itself  with  observations  and  concerns  it- 
self little  with  authority.  Prof.  Tate  in  this  unhappy  quota- 
tion, shows  not  only  that  he  'has  made  no  personal  studies  in 
medieval  philosophy  but  that  he  has  accepted  a  very  inadequate 
authority  for  the  statements  which  he  makes  with  as  much  con-* 
fidence  as  if  they  had  been  the  result  of  prolonged  research*  in 
this  field.  Many  other  modern  scientists  (  ?)  have  fallen  into 
like  blunders.  (For  Huxley's  opinion  see  Appendix.) 

The  modern  student,  as  well  as  the  teacher,  is  prone  to 
wonder  what  were  the  methods  of  study  and  the  habits  of  life 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  53 

of  the  students  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  fortunately  we 
have  a  short  sketch,  written  by  Robert  of  Sorbonne,  the  famous 
founder  of  the  Sorbonne,  in  which  he  gives  advice  to  attendants 
at  that  institution  as  to  how  they  should  spend  their  time,  so 
that  at  least  we  are  able  to  get  a  hint  of  the  ideals  that  were 
set  before  the  student.  Robert,  whose  long  experience  of  uni- 
versity life  made  him  thoroughly  competent  to  advise,  said : 

"The  student  who  wishes  to  make  progress  ought  to  observe 
six  essential  rules. 

"First :  He  ought  to  consecrate  a  certain  hour  every  day  to 
the  study  of  a  determined  subject,  as  St.  Bernard  counselled 
his  monks  in  his  letter  to  the  Brothers  of  the  Mont  Dieu. 

"Second :  He  ought  to  concentrate  his  attention  upon  what 
he  reads  and  ought  not  to  let  it  pass  lightly.  There  is  between 
reading  and  study,  as  St.  Bernard  says,  the  same  difference  as 
between  a  host  and  a  guest,  between  a  passing  salutation  ex- 
changed in  the  street  and  an  embrace  prompted  by  an  unalter- 
able affection. 

"Third:  He  ought  to  extract  from  the  daily  study  one 
thought,  some  truth  or  other,  and  engrave  it  deeply  upon  his 
memory  with  special  care.  Seneca  said  'Cum  multa  percurreris 
in  die,  unum  tibi  elige  quod  ilia  die  excoquas' —  When  you  have 
run  over  many  things  in  a  day  select  one  for  yourself  which 
you  should  digest  well  on  that  day. 

"Fourth:  Write  a  resume  of  it,  for  words  which  are  not 
confided  to  writing  fly  as  does  the  dust  before  the  wind. 

"Fifth:  Talk  the  matter  over  with  your  fellow-students, 
either  in  the  regular  recitation  or  in  your  familiar  conversation. 
This  exercise  is  even  more  profitable  than  study  for  it  has  as 
its  result  the  clarifying  of  all  doubts  and  the  removing  of  all 
the  obscurity  that  study  may  have  left.  Nothing  is  perfectly 
known  unless  it  has  been  tried  by  the  tooth  of  disputation. 

"Sixth:  Pray,  for  this  is  indeed  one  of  the  best  ways  of 
learning.  St.  Bernard  teaches  that  study  ought  to  touch  the 
heart  and  that  one  should  profit  by  it  always  by  elevating  the 
heart  to  God,  without,  however,  interrupting  the  study." 

Sorbonne  proceeds  in  a  tone  that  vividly  recalls  the  modern 
university  professor  who  has  seen  generation  after  generation 


54  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

of  students  and  has  learned  to  realize  how  many  of  them  waste 
their  time. 

"Certain  students  act  like  fools;  they  display  great  subtility 
over  nonsensical  subjects  and  exhibit  themselves  devoid  of  in- 
telligence with  regard  to  their  most  important  studies.  So  as 
not  to  seem  to  have  lost  their  time  they  gather  together  many 
sheets  of  parchment,  make  thick  volumes  of  note  books  out  of 
them,  with  many  a  blank  interval,  and  cover  them  with  elegant 
binding  in  red  letters.  Then  they  return  to  the  paternal  domi- 
cile with  their  littie  sack  rilled  up  with  knowledge  which  can 
be  stolen  from  them  by  any  thief  that  comes  along,  or  may  be 
eaten  by  rats  or  by  worms  or  destroyed  by  fire  or  water. 

"In  order  to  acquire  instruction  the  student  must  abstain 
from  pleasure  and  not  allow  himself  to  be  hampered  by  mate- 
rial cares.  There  was  at  Paris  not  long  since  two  teachers  who 
were  great  friends.  One  of  them  had  seen  much,  had  read 
much  and  used  to  remain  night  and  day  bent  over  his  books. 
He  scarcely  took  the  time  to  say  an  'Our  Father/  Nevertheless 
he  had  but  four  students.  His  colleague  possessed  a  much  less 
complete  library,  was  less  devoted  to  study  and  heard  mass 
every  morning  before  delivering  his  lecture.  In  spite  of  this, 
his  classroom  was  full.  'How  do  you  do  it?'  asked  his  friend. 
'It  is  very  simple/  said  his  friend  smiling.  'God  studies  for  me. 
I  go  to  mass  and  when  I  come  back  I  know  by  heart  all  that 
I  have  to  teach/  " 

"Meditation,"  so  Sorbonne  continues,  "is  suitable  not  only 
for  the  master,  but  the  good  student  ought  also  to  go  and  take 
his  promenade  along  the  banks  of  the  Seine,  not  to  play  there, 
but  in  order  to  repeat  his  lesson  and  meditate  upon  it." 

These  instructions  for  students  are  not  very  different  from 
those  that  would  be  issued  by  an  interested  head  of  a  univer- 
sity department  to  the  freshmen  of  the  present  day.  His  insis- 
tence, especially  on  the  difference  betv/een  reading  and  study, 
might  very  well  be  taken  to  heart  at  the  present  time,  when 
there  seems  to  be  some  idea  that  reading  of  itself  is  sufficient  to 
enable  one  to  obtain  an  education.  The  lesson  of  learning  one 
thing  a  day  and  learning  that  well,  might  have  been  selected 
as  a  motto  for  students  for  all  succeeding  generations  with 
manifest  advantage  to  the  success  of  college  study. 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED.  55 

In  other  things  Sorbonne  departs  further  from  our  modern 
ideas  in  the  matter  of  education,  but  still  there  are  many  even 
at  the  present  time  who  will  read  with  profound  sympathy  his 
emphatic  advice  to  the  University  students  that  they  must  edu- 
cate their  hearts  as  well  as  their  intellects,  and  make  their  edu- 
cation subserve  the  purpose  of  bringing  them  closer  to  God. 

A  word  about  certain  customs  that  prevailed  more  or  less 
generally  in  the  universities  at  this  time,  and  that  after  having 
been  much  misunderstood  will  now  be  looked  at  more  sympa- 
thetically in  the  light  of  recent  educational  developments  will 
not  be  out  of  place  here. 

One  of  the  advantages  of  modern  German  university  edu- 
cation has  often  been  acclaimed  to  be  the  fact  that  students  are 
tempted  to  make  portions  of  their  studies  in  various  cities,  since 
all  the  courses  are  equalized  in  certain  ways,  so  that  the  time 
spent  at  any  one  of  them  will  be  counted  properly  for  their  de- 
grees. It  has  long  been  recognized  that  travel  makes  the  best 
possible  complement  to  a  university  course,  and  even  when  the 
English  universities  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  sank  to  be 
little  more  than  pleasant  abiding  places  where  young  men  of 
the  upper  classes  "ate  their  terms,"  the  fact  that  it  was  the 
custom  "to  make  the  grand  tour"  of  continental  travel,  sup- 
plied for  much  that  was  lacking  in  the  serious  side  of  their  edu- 
cation. Little  as  this  might  be  anticipated  as  a  feature  of  the 
ruder  times  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  when  travel  was  so 
difficult,  it  must  be  counted  as  one  of  the  great  advantages  for 
the  inquiring  spirits  of  the  time.  Dante,  besides  attending  the 
universities  in  Italy,  and  he  certainly  was  at  several  of  them, 
was  also  at  Paris  at  one  time  and  probably  also  at  Oxford.  Pro- 
fessor Monroe  in  his  text  book  in  the  History  of  Education 
has  stated  this  custom  very  distinctly. 

"With  the  founding  of  the  universities  and  the  establishment 
of  the  nations  in  practically  every  university,  it  became  quite 
customary  for  students  to  travel  from  university  to  university, 
finding  in  each  a  home  in  their  appropriate  nation.  Many, 
however,  willing  to  accept  the  privileges  of  the  clergy  and  the 
students  without  undertaking  their  obligations,  adopted  this 
wandering  life  as  a  permanent  one.  Being  a  privileged  order, 
they  readily  found  a  living,  or  made  it  by  begging.  A  monk  of 


56  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  early  university  period  writes:  'The  scholars  are  accus- 
tomed to  wander  throughout  the  whole  world  and  visit  all  the 
cities,  and  their  many  studies  bring  them  understanding.  For 
in  Paris  they  seek  a  knowledge  of  the  liberal  arts;  of  the 
ancient  writers  at  Orleans;  of  medicine  at  Salernum;  of  the 
black  art  at  Toledo ;  and  in  no  place  decent  manners.'  " 

With  regard  to  the  old  monk's  criticism  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  old  age  is  always  rather  depreciative  in  criticism  of 
the  present  and  over-appreciative  of  what  happened  in  the  past 
se  pueris.  Abuses  always  seem  to  be  creeping  in  that  are 
going  to  ruin  the  force  of  education,  yet  somehow  the  next 
generation  succeeds  in  obtaining  its  intellectual  development  in 
rather  good  shape.  Besides  as  we  must  always  remember  in 
educational  questions,  evils  are  ever  exaggerated  and  the 
memory  of  them  is  prone  to  live  longer  and  to  loom  up  larger 
than  that  of  the  good  with  which  they  were  associated  and 
to  which  indeed,  as  anyone  of  reasonable  experience  in  educa- 
tional circles  knows,  they  may  constitute  by  comparison  only 
a  very  small  amount.  Undoubtedly  the  wanderings  of  stu- 
dents brought  with  it  many  abuses,  and  if  we  were  to  listen  to 
some  of  the  stories  of  foreign  student  life  in  Paris  in  our  own 
time,  we  might  think  that  much  of  evil  and  nothing  of  good 
was  accomplished  by  such  wandering,  but  inasmuch  as  we  do 
so  we  invite  serious  error  of  judgment. 

Another  striking  feature  of  university  life  which  con- 
stituted a  distinct  anticipation  of  something  very  modern  in  our 
educational  system,  was  the  lending  of  professors  of  different 
nationalities  among  the  universities.  It  is  only  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Twentieth  Century  that  we  have  reestablished  this  cus- 
tom. In  the  Thirteenth  Century,  however,  Albertus  Magnus 
taught  for  a  time  at  Cologne  and  then  later  at  Paris  and  ap- 
parently also  at  Rome.  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  after  having 
taught  for  a  time  at  Paris,  lectured  in  various  Italian  univer- 
sities and  then  finally  at1  the  University  of  Rome  to  which  he 
was  tempted  by  the  Popes.  Duns  Scotus,  besides  teaching  in 
Oxford,  taught  .also  at  Paris.  Alexander  of  Hales  before  him 
seems  to  have,  done  the  same  thing.  Roger  Baccn,  after 
studying  at  the  University  of  Paris,  seems  to  have  commenced 
teaching  there,  though  most  of  his  professional  work  was  ac- 


WHAT  THEY  STUDIED. 


57 


complished  at  the  University  of  Oxford.  Raymond  Lully  prob- 
ably had  professional  experiences  at  several  Spanish  Universi- 
ties besides  at  Paris.  In  a  word,  if  a  man  were  a  distinguished 
genius  he  was  almost  sure  to  be  given  the  opportunity  to  in- 
fluence his  generation  at  a  number  of  centers  of  educational  life, 
and  not  be  confined  as  has  been  the  case  in  the  centuries  since  to 
but  one  or  at  most,  and  that  more  by  accident  than  intent,  to 
perhaps  two.  In  a  word  there  is  not  a  distinctive  feature  of 
modern  university  life  that  was  not  anticipated  in  the  Thir- 
teenth Century. 


FLYING  BUTTRESS    (AMIENS) 


58  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

IV 
THE  NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS  AND  DISCIPLINE. 


For  most  people  the  surprise  of  rinding  that  the  subjects  with 
which  the  students  were  occupied  at  the  universities  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  were  very  much  the  same  as  those  which 
claim  the  attention  of  modern  students,  will  probably  be  some- 
what mitigated  by  the  thought  that  after  all  there  were  only 
few  in  attendance  at  the  universities,  and  as  a  consequence  only 
a  small  proportion  of  the  population  shared  in  that  illumination, 
which  has  become  so  universal  in  the  spread  of  opportunities 
for  the  higher  education  in  these  later  times.  While  such  an 
impression  is  cherished  by  many  even  of  those  who  think  that 
they  know  the  history  of  education,  and  unfortunately  are  con- 
sidered by  others  to  be  authorities  on  the  subject,  it  is  the  fals- 
est possible  idea  that  could  be  conceived  of  this  medieval  time 
with  which  we  are  concerned.  We  may  say  at  once  that  it  is  a 
matter  of  comparatively  easy  collation  of  statistics  to  show, 
that  in  proportion  to  the  population  of  the  various  countries, 
there  were  actually  more  students  taking  advantage  of  the  op- 
portunity to  acquire  university  education  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  than  there  were  at  any  time  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century,  or  even  in  the  midst  of  this  era  of  widespread  educa- 
tional opportunities  in  the  Twentieth  Century. 

Most  people  know  the  traditions  which  declare  that  there 
were  between  twenty  and  thirty  thousand  students  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris  toward  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  At 
the  same  time  there  were  said  to  have  been  between  fifteen  and 
twenty  thousand  students  at  the  University  of  Bologna.  Cor- 
respondingly large  numbers  have  been  reported  for  the  Uni- 
versity of  Oxford  and  many  thousands  were  supposed  to  be  in 
attendance  at  the  University  of  Cambridge.  It  is  usually  con- 
sidered, however,  that  these  figures  are  gross  exaggerations. 
It  is  easy  to  assert  this  but  rather  difficult  to  prove.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  the  nearer  one  comes  to  the  actual  times  in  the 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  59 

history  of  education,  the  more  definitely  do  writers  speak 
of  these  large  numbers  of  students  in  attendance.  For  instance 
Gascoigne,  who  says  that  there  were  thirty  thousand  students  at 
the  University  of  Oxford  at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
lived  himself  within  a  hundred  years  of  the  events  of  which  he 
talks,  and  he  even  goes  so  far  as  to  declare  that  he  saw  the 
rolls  of  the  University  containing  this  many  names.  There  is 
no  doubt  at  all  about  his  evidence  in  the  matter  and  there  is  no 
mistake  possible  with  regard  to  his  figures.  They  were  writ- 
ten out  in  Latin,  not  expressed  in  Arabic  or  Roman  numerals, 
the  copying  of  which  might  so  easily  give  opportunities  for 
error  to  creep  in. 

In  spite  of  such  evidence  it  is  generally  conceded  that  to  ac- 
cept these  large  numbers  would  be  almost  surely  a  mistake. 
There  were  without  any  doubt  many  thousands  of  students  at 
the  Thirteenth  Century  universities.  There  were  certainly 
more  students  at  the  University  of  Paris  in  the  last  quarter  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  than  there  were  at  any  time  during  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  This  of  itself  is  enough  to  startle  modern 
complacency  out  of  most  of  its  ridiculous  self-sufficiency. 
There  can  be  scarcely  a  doubt  that  the  University  of  Bologna 
at  the  time  of  its  largest  attendance  had  more  students  than  any 
university  of  modern  times,  proud  as  we  may  be  (and  deserv- 
edly) of  our  immense  institutions  of  learning.  With  regard  to 
the  English  universities  the  presence  of  very  large 
numbers  is  much  more  doubtful.  Making  every  al- 
lowance, however,  there  can  be  no  hesitation  in  say- 
ing that  Oxford  had  during  the  last  quarter  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  a  larger  number  than  ever  after- 
wards within  her  walls  and  that  Cambridge,  though  never  so 
numerous  as  her  rival,  had  a  like  good  fortune.  Professor 
Laurie  of  Edinburgh,  a  very  conservative  authority  and  one  not 
likely  to' concede  too  much  to  the  Middle  Ages  in  anything, 
would  allow,  as  we  shall  see,  some  ten  thousand  students  to 
Oxford.  Others  have  claimed  more  than  half  that  number  for 
Cambridge  as  the  lowest  possible  estimate.  Even  if  it  be  con- 
ceded, as  has  sometimes  been  urged,  that  all  those  in  service  in 
the  universities  were  also  counted  as  students,  these  numbers 
would  not  be  reduced  very  materially  and  it  must  not  be  forgot- 


60  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ten  that,  in  those  days  of  enthusiastic  striving  after  education, 
young  men  were  perfectly  willing  to  take  up  even  the  onerous 
duties  of  personal  services  to  others,  in  order  to  have  the  oppor- 
tunity to  be  closely  in  touch  with  a  great  educational  institu- 
tion and  to  receive  even  a  moderate  amount  of  benefit  from  its 
educational  system.  In  our  own  time  there  are  many  students 
who  are  working  their  way  through  the  universities,  and  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  when  the  spirit  of  independence  was  much 
less  developed,  and  when  any  stigma  that  attached  to  personal 
service  was  much  less  felt  than  it  is  at  the  present  time,  there 
were  many  more  examples  of  this  earnest  striving  for  intellec- 
tual development. 

If  we  discuss  the  situation  in  English-speaking  countries  as 
regards  the  comparative  attendance  at  the  universities  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  and  in  our  own  time,  we  shall  be  able  to  get 
a  reasonably  good  idea  of  what  must  be  thought  in  this  matter. 
The  authorities  are  neither  difficult  of  consultation  nor  distant, 
and  comparatively  much  more  is  known  about  the  population 
of  England  at  this  time  than  about  most  of  the  continental 
countries.  England  was  under  a  single  ruler,  while  the  geo- 
graphical divisions  that  we  now  know  by  the  name  of  France, 
Spain,  Italy  and  Germany  were  the  seats  of  several  rulers  at 
least  and  sometimes  of  many,  a  circumstance  which  does  not 
favor  our  obtaining  an  adequate  idea  of  the  populations. 

That  but  two  universities  provided  all  the  opportunities  for 
whatever  higher  education  there  was  in  England  at  this  time, 
would  of  itself  seem  to  stamp  the  era  as  backward  in  educa- 
tional matters.  A  little  consideration  of  the  comparative  num- 
ber of  students  with  reference  to  the  population  of  the  country 
who  were  thus  given  the  opportunity  for  higher  education — and 
took  advantage  of  it — at  that  time  and  the  present,  will  show 
the  unreasonableness  of  such  an  opinion.  It  is  not  so  easy  as 
might  be  imagined  to  determine  just  what  was  the  population 
even  of  England  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  During 
Elizabeth's  reign  there  were,  according  to  the  census,  an 
estimate  made  about  the  time  of  the  great  Armada,  al- 
together some  four  millions  of  people.  Froude  ac- 
cepts this  estimate  as  representing  very  well  the  actual  num- 
ber of  the  population.  Certainly  there  were  not  more 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  61 

than  five  millions  at  the  end  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.  Lin- 
gard,  who  for  this  purpose  must  be  considered  as  a  thoroughly 
conservative  authority,  estimates  that  there  were  not  much 
more  than  two  millions  of  people  in  England  at  the  end  of  the 
Twelfth  Century.  This  is  probably  not  an  underestimate.  At 
the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  there  were  not  many  more 
than  two  millions  and  a  half  of  people  in  the  country.  At  the 
very  outside  there  were,  let  us  say,  three  millions.  Out  of  this 
meagre  population,  ten  thousand  students  were,  on  the  most 
conservative  estimate,  taking  advantage  of  the  opportunities 
for  the  higher  education  that  were  provided  for  them  at  the  uni- 
versities. 

At  the  present  moment,  though  we  pride  ourselves  on  the 
numbers  in  attendance  at  our  universities,  and  though  the 
world's  population  is  so  much  more  numerous  and  the  means  of 
transportation  so  much  more  easy,  we  have  very  few  universi- 
ties as  large  as  these  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  No  American 
university  at  the  present  moment  has  as  large  a  number  of  stu- 
dents as  had  Oxford  at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and 
of  course  none  of  them  compares  at  all  with  Paris  or  Bologna 
in  this  respect.  Even  the  European  universities,  as  we  have 
suggested,  fall  behind  their  former  glory  from  this  standpoint. 
In  the  attendance  to  the  number  of  population  the  comparison 
is  even  more  startling  for  those  who  have  not  thought  at  all 
of  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  time  of  wonderful  educational  facili- 
ties and  opportunities.  In  the  greater  City  of  New  York  as 
we  begin  the  Twentieth  Century  there  are  perhaps  fifteen  thou- 
sand students  in  attendance  at  educational  institutions  which 
have  university  privileges.  I  may  say  that  this  is  a  very  liberal 
allowance.  At  universities  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word 
there  are  not  more  than  ten  thousand  students  and  the  remain- 
der is  added  in  order  surely  to  include  all  those  who  may  be 
considered  as  doing  undergraduate  work  in  colleges  and 
schools  of  various  kinds.  Of  these  fifteen  thousand  at  least 
one- fourth  come  from  outside  of  the  greater  city,  and  there  are 
some  who  think  that  even  one-third  would  not  be  too  large  a 
number  to  calculate  as  not  being  drawn  directly  from  our  own 
population.  Connecticut  and  New  Jersey  furnish  large  num- 
bers of  students  and  then,  besides,  the  post-graduate  schools 


62  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

of  the  universities  have  very  large  numbers  in  attendance  even 
from  distant  states  and  foreign  countries. 

It  will  be  within  the  bounds  of  truth,  then,  to  say,  that  there 
are  between  ten  and  twelve  thousand  students,  out  of  our  popu- 
lation of  more  than  four  millions  in  Greater  New  York  taking 
advantage  of  the  opportunities  for  the  higher  education  pro- 
vided by  our  universities  and  colleges.  At  the  end  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  in  England  there  were  at  least  ten  thousand  stu- 
dents out  of  a  population  of  not  more  and  very  probably  less 
than  three  millions,  who  were  glad  to  avail  themselves  of  simi- 
lar opportunities.  This  seems  to  be  perfectly  fair  comparison 
and  we  have  tried  to  be  as  conservative  as  possible  in  every 
way  in  order  to  bring  out  the  truth  in  the  matter. 

It  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  a  matter  of  supreme  surprise  to  find 
that  a  century  so  distant  as  the  Thirteenth,  should  thus  equal 
our  own  vaunted  Twentieth  Century  in  the  matter  of  oppor- 
tunities for  the  higher  education  afforded  and  taken  advantage 
of.  It  has  always  been  presumed  that  the  Middle  Ages,  while 
a  little  better  than  the  Dark  Ages,  were  typical  periods  in  which 
there  was  little,  if  any  desire  for  higher  education  and  even 
fewer  opportunities.  It  was  thought  that  there  was  constant 
repression  of  the  desire  for  knowledge  which  springs  so  eter- 
nally in  the  human  heart  and  that  the  Church,  or  at  least  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  time,  set  themselves  firmly 
against  widespread  education,  because  it  would  set  people  to 
thinking  for  themselves.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  every 
Cathedral  and  every  monastery  became  a  center  of  educational 
influence,  and  even  the  poorest,  who  showed  special  signs  of 
talent,  obtained  the  opportunity  to  secure  knowledge  to  the  de- 
gree that  they  wished.  It  is  beyond  doubt  or  cavil,  that  at  no 
time  in  the  world's  history  have  so  many  opportunities  for  the 
higher  education  been  open  to  all  classes  as  during  the  Thir- 
teenth Century. 

In  order  to  show  how  thoroughly  conservative  are  the  num- 
bers in  attendance  at  the  universities  that  I  have  taken,  I  shall 
quote  two  good  recent  authorities,  one  of  them  Professor 
Laurie,  the  Professor  of  the  Institutes  and  History  of  Educa- 
tion in  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  and  the  other  Thomas 
Davidson,  a  well-known  American  authority  on  educational 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  63 

subjects.  Each  of  their  works  from  which  I  shall  quote  has 
been  published  or  revised  within  the  last  few  years.  Professor 
Laurie  in  "The  Rise  and  Early  Constitution  of  the  University 
with  a  Survey  of  the  Medieval  Education,"  which  formed  one 
of  the  International  Educational  Series,  edited  by  Commis- 
sioner Harris  and  published  by  Appleton,  said : 

"When  one  hears  of  the  large  number  of  students  who  at- 
tended the  earliest  universities — ten  thousand  and  even  twenty 
thousand  at  Bologna,  an  equal,  and  at  one  time  a  greater, 
number  at  Paris,  and  thirty  thousand  at  Oxford — one  cannot 
help  thinking  that  the  numbers  have  been  exaggerated.  There 
is  certainly  evidence  that  the  Oxford  attendance  was  never  so 
great  as  has  been  alleged  (see  Anstey's  'Mon  Acad.') ;  but 
when  we  consider  that  attendants,  servitors,  college  cooks,  etc., 
were  regarded  as  members  of  the  university  community,  and 
that  the  universities  provided  for  a  time  the  sole  recognized 
training  grounds  for  those  wishing  to  enter  the  ecclesiastical  or 
legal  or  teaching  professions,  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  the  sub- 
stantial accuracy  of  the  tradition  as  to  attendance — especially 
when  we  remember  that  at  Paris  and  Oxford  a  large  number 
were  mere  boys  of  from  twelve  to  fifteen  years  of  age." 

As  to  the  inclusion  of  servitors,  we  have  already  said  that 
many,  probably,  indeed,  most  of  them,  were  actual  students 
working  their  way  through  the  university  in  these  en- 
thusiastic days.  Professor  Laurie's  authority  for  the 
assertion  that  a  large  number  of  the  students  at  Paris 
and  Oxford  were  mere  boys,  is  a  regulation  known  to 
have  existed  at  one  of  these  universities  requiring  that  students 
should  not  be  less  than  twelve  years  of  age.  Anyone  who  has 
studied  medieval  university  life,  however,  will  have  been  im- 
pressed with  the  idea,  that  the  students  were  on  the  average 
older  at  the  medieval  universities  rather  than  younger  than 
they  are  at  the  present  time.  The  rough  hazing  methods  em- 
ployed, almost  equal  to  those  of  our  own  day !  would  seem  to 
indicate  this.  Besides,  as  Professor  Laurie  confesses  in  the 
next  paragraph,  many  of  the  students  were  actually  much 
older  than  at  present.  Our  university  courses  are  arranged  for 
young  men  between  17  and  22,  but  that  is,  to  fall  back  on  Her- 
bert Spencer,  presumably  because  the  period  of  infancy  is 


64  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

lengthening  with  the  evolution  of  the  race.  There  are  many 
who  consider  that  at  the  present  time  students  are  too  long  de- 
layed in  the  opportunity  to  get  at  the  professional  studies,  and 
that  it  is  partly  the  consequence  of  this  that  the  practical 
branches  are  so  much  more  taken  up  under  the  elective  system. 
As  we  said  in  the  chapter  on  Universities  and  Preparatory 
Schools,  in  Italy  and  in  other  southern  countries,  it  is  not  a  sur- 
prising thing  to  have  a  young  man  graduate  at  the  age  of  16  or 
17  with  his  degree  of  A.  B.,  after  a  thoroughly  creditable  schol- 
astic career.  This  means  that  he  began  his  university  work 
proper  under  13  years  of  age;  so  that  we  must  judge  the  me- 
dieval universities  to  some  extent  at  least  with  this  thought 
in  mind. 

Mr.  Thomas  Davidson  in  his  "History  of  Education,"*  in  the 
chapter  on  The  Medieval  University  has  a  paragraph  in  which 
he  discusses  the  attendance,  especially  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  and  admits  that  the  numbers,  while  perhaps  not  so 
large  as  have  been  reported,  were  very  large  in  comparison  to 
modern  institutions  of  the  same  kind,  and  frankly  concedes  that 
education  rose  during  these  centuries  which  are  often  supposed 
to  have  been  so  unfavorable  to  educational  development,  to  an 
amazing  height  scarcely  ever  surpassed.  He  says : 

"The  number  of  students  reported  as  having  attended  some 
of  the  universities  in  those  early  days  almost  passes  belief ;  e.  g., 
Oxford  is  said  to  have  had  thirty  thousand  about  the  year  1300, 
and  half  that  number  even  as  early  as  1224.  The  numbers  at- 
tending the  University  of  Paris  were  still  greater.  These  num- 
bers become  less  surprising  when  we  remember  with  what 
poor  accommodations — a  bare  room  and  an  armful  of  straw — 
the  students  of  those  days  were  content,  and  what  numbers  of 
them  even  a  single  teacher  like  Abelard  could,  long  before, 
draw  into  lonely  retreats.  That  in  the  Twelfth  and  following 
centuries  there  was  no  lack  of  enthusiasm  for  study,  notwith- 
standing the  troubled  condition  of  the  times,  is  very  clear.  The 
instruction  given  at  the  universities,  moreover,  reacted  upon 
the  lower  schools,  raising  their  standard  and  supplying  them 
with  competent  teachers.  Thus,  in  the  Thirteenth  and  Four- 

*A  History  of  Education,  by  Thomas  Davidson,  author  of  Aristotle 
and  Ancient  Educational  Ideas.     New  York:  Scribners,  1900. 


CHRIST   DRIVING  OUT   MONEY 
CHANGERS    (GIOTTO) 


HEAD  FROM   ANNUNCIATION    (GIOT1 


BRIDE    MARRIAGE   AT    CANA    (GIOTTO) 


SAINT'S  HEAD   (MOSAIC 
ST.  MARK'S,  VENICE)   ' 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  65 

teenth  centuries,  education  rose  in  many  European  states  to 
a  height  which  it  had  not  attained  since  the  days  of  Seneca  and 
Quintilian." 

A  very  serious  objection  that  would  seem  to  have  so  much 
weight  as  to  preclude  all  possibility  of  accepting  as  true  the 
large  numbers  mentioned,  is  the  fact  that  it  is  very  hard  to  un- 
derstand how  such  an  immense  number  of  students  could  have 
been  supported  in  any  town  of  the  Middle  Ages.  This  objec- 
tion has  carried  so  much  weight  to  some  minds  as  to  make  them 
give  up  the  thought  of  large  numbers  at  the  medieval  univer- 
sities. Professor  Laurie  has  answered  it  very  effectively,  how- 
ever, and  in  his  plausible  explanation  gives  a  number  of  points 
which  emphasize  the  intense  ardor  of  these  students  of  the 
Middle  Ages  in  their  search  for  knowledge,  and  shows  how 
ready  they  were  to  bear  serious  trials  and  inconveniences,  not 
to  say  absolute  sufferings  and  hardships,  in  order  that  they 
might  have  opportunities  for  the  higher  education.  The  ob- 
jection then  redounds  rather  to  the  glory  of  the  medieval  uni- 
versities than  lessens  their  prestige,  either  as  regards  numbers 
or  the  enthusiasm  of  their  students. 

"The  chief  objection  to  accepting  the  tradition  (of  large 
numbers  at  the  universities)  lies  in  the  difficulty  of  seeing  how 
in  those  days,  so  large  a  number  of  the  young  men  of  Europe 
could  afford  the  expense  of  residence  away  from  their  homes. 
This  difficulty,  however,  is  partly  removed  when  we  know  that 
many  of  the  students  were  well  to  do,  that  a  considerable  num- 
ber were  matured  men,  already  monks  and  canons,  and  that 
the  endowments  of  Cathedral  schools  also  were  frequently  used 
to  enable  promising  scholars  to  attend  foreign  universities. 
Monasteries  also  regularly  sent  boys  of  thirteen  and  fourteen 
to  university  seats.  A  papal  instruction  of  1335  required  every 
Benedictine  and  Augustinian  community  to  send  boys  to  the 
universities  in  the  proportion  of  one  in  twenty  of  their  resi- 
dents. Then,  state  authorities  ordered  free  passages  for  all 
who  were  wending  their  way  through  the  country  to  and  from 
the  seat  of  learning.  In  the  houses  of  country  priests — not  to 
speak  of  the  monastery  hospitals — traveling  scholars  were  al- 
ways accommodated  gratuitously,  and  even  local  subscriptions 
were  frequently  made  to  help  them  on  their  way.  Poor  trav- 


66  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

eling  scholars  were,  in  fact,  a  medieval  institution,  and  it  was 
considered  no  disgrace  for  a  student  to  beg  and  receive  alms 
for  his  support." 

After  reading  these  authoritative  opinions,  it  would  be  rather 
difficult  to  understand  the  false  impressions  which  have  ob- 
tained so  commonly  for  the  last  three  centuries  with  regard  to 
education  in  the  Middle  Ages,  if  we  did  not  realize  that  history, 
especially  for  English-speaking  people,  has  for  several  centuries 
been  written  from  a  very  narrow  standpoint  and  with  a  very 
definite  purpose.  About  a  century  ago  the  Comte  de  Maistre 
said  in  his  Soirees  de  St.  Petersburg,  that  history  for  the  three 
hundred  years  before  his  time  "had  been  a  conspiracy  against 
the  truth."  Curiously  enough  the  editors  of  the  Cambridge 
Modern  History  in  their  first  volume  on  the  Renaissance,  re- 
echoed this  sentiment  of  the  French  historical  writer  and  phil- 
osopher. They  even  use  the  very  words  "history  has  been  a 
conspiracy  against  the  truth"  and  proclaim  that  if  we  are  to 
get  at  truth  in  this  generation,  we  must  go  behind  all  the 
classical  historians,  and  look  up  contemporary  documents  and 
evidence  and  authorities  once  more  for  ourselves.  It  is  the 
maintenance  of  a  tradition  that  nothing  good  could  possibly 
have  come  out  of  the  Nazareth  of  the  times  before  the  Ref- 
ormation, that  has  led  to  this  serious  misapprehension  of  the 
true  position  of  those  extremely  important  centuries  in  modern 
education — the  Thirteenth  and  the  Fourteenth. 

To  those  who  know  even  a  little  of  what  was  accomplished  in 
these  centuries,  it  is  supremely  amusing  to  read  the  childish 
treatment  accorded  them  and  the  trivial  remarks  that  even  ac- 
credited historians  of  education  make  with  regard  to  them. 
Occasionally,  however,  the  feeling  of  the  reader  who  knows 
something  of  the  subject  is  not  one  of  amusement,  but  far  from 
it.  There  are  times  when  one  cannot  help  but  feel  that  it  is  not 
ignorance,  but  a  deliberate  purpose  to  minimize  the  importance 
of  these  times  in  culture  and  education,  that  is  at  the  basis  of 
some  of  the  utterly  mistaken  remarks  that  are  made.  We  shall 
take  occasion  only  to  give  one  example  of  this,  but  that  will  af- 
ford ample  evidence  of  the  intolerant  spirit  that  characterizes 
the  work  of  some  even  of  the  supposedly  most  enlightened  his- 
torians of  education.  The  quotation  will  be  from  Compayre's 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  67 

"History  of  Pedagogy"  which  is,  I  understand,  in  use  in  nearly 
every  Normal  School  in  this  country  and  is  among  the  books 
required  in  many  Normal  School  examinations. 

M.  Compayre  in  an  infamous  paragraph  which  bears  the  title 
"The  Intellectual  Feebleness  of  the  Middle  Age,"  furnishes  an 
excellent  example  of  how  utterly  misunderstood,  if  not  delib- 
erately misrepresented,  has  been  the  whole  spirit  and  content 
and  the  real  progressiveness  of  education  in  this  wonderful 
period.  After  some  belittling  expressions  as  to  the  influence  of 
Christianity  on  education — expressions  utterly  unjustified  by 
the  facts — he  has  this  to  say  with  regard  to  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, which  is  all  the  more  surprising  because  it  is  the  only 
place  where  he  calls  any  attention  to  it.  He  says : 

"In  1291,  of  all  the  monks  in  the  convent  of  St.  Gall,  there 
was  not  one  who  could  read  and  write.  It  was  so  difficult  to 
find  notaries  public,  that  acts  had  to  be  passed  verbally.  The 
barons  took  pride  in  their  ignorance.  Even  after  the  efforts  of 
the  Twelfth  Century,  instruction  remained  a  luxury  for  the 
common  people;  it  was  the  privilege  of  the  ecclesiastics  and 
even  they  did  not  carry  it  very  far.  The  Benedictines  confess 
that  the  mathematics  were  studied  only  for  the  purpose  of  cal- 
culating the  date  of  Easter." 

This  whole  paragraph  of  M.  Compayre  (the  rest  must  be 
read  to  be  appreciated),  whose  history  of  education  was  con- 
sidered to  be  of  such  value  that  it  was  deemed  worthy  of 
translation  by  the  President  of  a  State  Normal  School  and  that 
it  has  been  adopted  as  a  work  of  reference,  in  some  cases  of 
required  study,  in  many  of  the  Normal  Schools  throughout  the 
country,  is  a  most  wonderful  concoction  of  ingredients,  all  of 
which  are  meant  to  dissolve  every  possible  idea  that  people 
might  have  of  the  existence  of  any  tincture  of  education  during 
the  Middle  Ages.  There  is  only  one  fact  which  deeply  con- 
cerns us  because  it  refers  to  the  Thirteenth  Century.  M.  Com- 
payre says  that  in  1291  of  all  the  monks  of  the  Convent  of  Saint 
Gall  there  was  not  one  who  could  read  and  write.  This  single 
fact  is  meant  to  sum  up  the  education  of  the  century  for  the 
reader.  Especially  it  is  meant  to  show  the  student  of  pedagogy 
how  deeply  sunk  in  ignorance  were  the  monks  and  all  the 
ecclesiastics  of  this  period. 


68  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Before  attempting  to  say  anything  further  it  may  be  as  well 
to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  the  original  French  edition 
the  writer  did  not  say  that  there  was  not  a  single  monk.  He 
said,  "There  was  but  one  monk,  who  could  read  and  write.'* 
Possibly  it  seemed  to  the  translator  to  make  the  story  more 
complete  to  leave  out  this  one  poor  monk  and  perhaps  one 
monk  more  or  less,  especially  a  medieval  monk,  may  not  count 
for  very  much  to  modern  students  of  education.  There  are 
those  of  us,  however,  who  consider  it  too  bad  to  obliterate  even 
a  single  monk  in  this  crude  way  and  we  ask  that  he  shall  be 
put  back.  There  was  one  who  could  read  and  write  and  carry 
on  the  affairs  of  the  monastery.  Let  us  have  him  at  least,  by  all 
means. 

In  the  year  1291  when  M.  Compayre  says  that  there  was  but 
a  single  monk  at  the  monastery  of  St.  Gall  who  could  read  and 
write,  he,  a  professor  himself  at  a  French  Normal  School,  must 
have  known  very  well  that  there  were  over  twenty  thousand 
students  at  the  University  of  Paris,  almost  as  many  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Bologna,  and  over  five  thousand,  some  authorities 
say  many  more  than  this  ( Professor  Laurie  would  admit  more 
than  ten  thousand),  at  the  University  of  Oxford,  though  all 
Christian  Europe  at  this  time  did  not  have  a  population  of  more 
than  15,000,000  people.  He  must  have  known,  too,  or  be  hope- 
lessly ignorant  in  educational  matters,  that  many  of  the  stu- 
dents at  these  universities  belonged  to  the  Franciscans  and 
Dominicans,  and  that  indeed  many  of  the  greatest  teachers  at 
the  universities  were  members  of  these  monastic  orders.  Of 
this  he  says  nothing,  however.  All  that  he  says  is  "Education 
was  the  privilege  of  the  ecclesiastics  and  they  did  not  carry  it 
very  far."  This  is  one  way  of  writing  a  history  of  education. 
It  is  a  very  effective  way  of  poisoning  the  wells  of  information 
and  securing  the  persistence  of  the  tradition  that  there  was  no 
education  until  after  the  beginning  of  the  Sixteenth  Century. 

Meantime  one  can  scarcely  help  but  admire  the  ingenuity  of 
deliberate  purpose  that  uses  the  condition  of  the  monastery  of 
St.  Gall  to  confirm  his  statement.  St.  Gall  had  been  founded  by 
Irish  monks  probably  about  the  beginning  of  the  Eighth  Cen- 
tury. It  had  been  for  at  least  three  centuries  a  center  of  educa- 
tion, civilization  and  culture,  as  well  as  of  religion,  for  the 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  69 

barbarians  who  had  settled  in  the  Swiss  country  after  the  trans- 
migration of  nations.  The  Irish  had  originally  obtained  their 
culture  from  Christian  Missionaries,  and  now  as  Christian  Mis- 
sionaries they  brought  it  back  to  Europe  and  accomplished  their 
work  with  wonderful  effectiveness.  St.  Gall  was  for  centuries 
a  lasting  monument  to  their  efforts.  After  the  Tenth  Century, 
however,  the  monastery  began  to  degenerate.  It  was  almost 
directly  in  the  path  of  armies  which  so  frequently  went  down  to 
Italy  because  of  the  German  interest  in  the  Italian  peninsula 
and  the  claims  of  the  German  emperor.  After  a  time  according 
to  tradition,  the  emperor  insisted  that  certain  of  the  veterans 
of  his  army  should  be  received  and  cared  for  in  their  old  age  at 
St.  Gall.  Gradually  this  feature  of  the  institution  became  more 
and  more  prominent  until  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  it  had  be- 
come little  more  than  a  home  for  old  soldiers.  In  order  to  live 
on  the  benefices  of  the  monastery  these  men  had  to  submit  to 
ecclesiastical  regulations  and  wear  the  habit.  They  were,  it  is 
true,  a  sort  of  monk,  that  is,  they  were  willing,  for  the  sake  of 
the  peace  and  ease  which  it  brought,  to  accept  the  living  thus 
provided  for  them  and  obey  to  some  degree  at  least  the  rules  of 
the  monastery.  It  is  not  surprising  that  among  these  there 
should  have  been  only  one  who  could  read  and  write.  The  sol- 
diers of  the  time  despised  the  men  of  letters  and  prided  them- 
selves on  not  being  able  to  write.  That  a  historian  of  pedagogy, 
however,  should  take  this  one  fact  in  order  to  give  students  an 
idea  of  the  depth  of  ignorance  of  the  Middle  Ages,  is  an  exhibi- 
tion of  some  qualities  in  our  modern  educated  men,  that  one 
does  not  like  to  think  of  as  compatible  with  the  capacity  to 
read  and  write.  It  would  indeed  be  better  not  to  be  able  to 
read  and  write  than  thus  to  read  and  write  one's  own  prejudices 
into  history,  and  above  all  the  history  of  education. 

Compayre's  discussion  of  the  "Causes  of  the  Ignorance"  of 
the  Middle  Ages  in  the  next  paragraph,  is  one  of  the  most  curi- 
ous bits  of  special  pleading  by  a  man  who  holds  a  brief  for  one 
side  of  the  question,  that  I  think  has  ever  been  seen  in  what  was 
to  be  considered  serious  history.  He  first  makes  it  clear  how 
much  opposed  the  Christian  Church  was  to  education,  then  he 
admits  that  she  did  some  things  which  cannot  be  denied,  but 
minimizes  their  significance.  Then  he  concludes  that  it  was  not 


70  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  fault  of  the  Church,  but  in  this  there  is  a  precious  bit  of 
damning  by  faint  praise.  It  would  be  impossible  for  any  or- 
dinary person  who  had  only  Compayre  for  authority  to  feel 
anything  after  reading  the  paragraph,  but  that  Christianity  was 
a  serious  detriment  and  surely  not  a  help  to  the  cause  of  pro- 
gress in  education.  I  quote  part  of  the  paragraph : 

"What  were  the  permanent  causes  of  that  situation  which 
lasted  for  ten  centuries?  The  Catholic  Church  has  sometimes 
been  held  responsible  for  this.  Doubtless  the  Christian  doctors 
did  not  always  profess  a  very  warm  sympathy  for  intellectual 
culture.  Saint  Augustine  has  said :  It  is  the  ignorant  who  gain 
possession  of  heaven  (indocti  coelum  rapiunt.)  Saint  Gregory 
the  Great,  a  Pope  of  the  Sixth  Century,  declared  that  he  would 
blush  to  have  the  holy  word  conform  to  the  rules  of  grammar. 
Too  many  Christians,  in  a  word,  confounded  ignorance  with 
holiness.  Doubtless,  towards  the  Seventh  Century,  the  dark- 
ness still  hung  thick  over  the  Christian  Church.  Barbarians 
invaded  the  Episcopate,  and  carried  with  them  their  rude  man- 
ners. Doubtless,  also,  during  the  feudal  period  the  priest  often 
became  a  soldier,  and  remained  ignorant.  It  would,  however, 
be  unjust  to  bring  a  constructive  charge  against  the  Church  of 
the  Middle  Age,  and  to  represent  it  as  systematically  hostile  to 
instruction.  Directly  to  the  contrary,  it  is  the  clergy  who,  in 
the  midst  of  the  general  barbarism,  preserved  some  vestiges 
of  the  ancient  culture.  The  only  schools  of  that  period  are  the 
Episcopal  and  claustral  schools,  the  first  annexed  to  the 
Bishops'  palaces,  the  second  to  the  monasteries.  The  religious 
orders  voluntarily  associated  manual  labor  with  mental  labor. 
As  far  back  as  530,  St.  Benedict  founded  the  Convent  of  Monte 
Cassino,  and  drew  up  statutes  which  made  reading  and  intel- 
lectual labor  a  part  of  the  daily  life  of  the  monks."  When  this 
damning  by  faint  praise  is  taken  in  connection  with  the  para- 
graph in  which  only  a  single  monk  at  the  Monastery  of  St. 
Gall  is  declared  to  have  been  able  to  read  and  write,  the  utterly 
false  impression  that  is  sure  to  result,  can  be  readily  understood 
even  by  those  who  are  not  sympathetic  students  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  This  is  how  our  histories  of  education  have  been  written 
as  a  rule,  and  as  a  consequence  the  most  precious  period  in 
modern  education,  its  great  origin,  has  been  ignored  even  by 


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NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  71 

professional  scholars,  to  the  great  detriment  not  only  of  his- 
torical knowledge  but  also  of  any  proper  appreciation  of  the 
evolution  of  education. 

It  will  be  said  by  those  who  do  not  appreciate  the  conditions 
that  existed  in  the  Middle  Ages,  that  these  numbers  at  the 
universities  seeking  the  higher  education,  mean  very  little  for 
the  culture  of  the  people,  since  practically  all  of  those  in  attend- 
ance at  the  universities  belonged  to  the  clerical  order.  There  is 
no  doubt  that  most  students  were  clerics  in  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury. This  did  not  mean,  however,  that  they  had  taken  major 
orders  or  had  in  any  way  bound  themselves  irrevocably  to  con- 
tinue in  the  clerical  vocation.  The  most  surprising  thing  about 
the  spread  of  culture  and  the  desire  for  the  higher  education 
during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  is  that  they  developed  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  rulers  of  the  time  were  all  during  the  cen- 
tury, embroiled  in  war  either  with  their  neighbors  or  with  the 
nobility.  Anyone  who  wanted  to  live  a  quiet,  intellectual  life 
turned  naturally  to  the  clerical  state,  which  enabled  him  to  es- 
cape military  duties  and  gave  him  opportunities  for  study,  as 
well  as  protection  from  many  exactions  that  might  otherwise  be 
levied  upon  him.  The  church  not  only  encouraged  education, 
but  supplied  the  peaceful  asylums  in  which  it  might  be  culti- 
vated to  the  heart's  content  of  the  student. 

While  this  clerical  state  was  a  necessity  during  the  whole 
time  of  residence  at  the  university,  it  was  not  necessarily  main- 
tained afterward.  Many  of  the  clerics  did  not  even  have  minor 
orders — orders  which  it  is  well  understood  carry  with  them  no 
absolute  obligation  of  continuing  in  the  clerical  state.  Sextons 
and  their  assistants  were  clerics.  When  the  word  canon  origi- 
nally came  into  use  it  meant  nothing  more  than  that  the  man 
was  entered  on  the  rolls  of  a  church  and  received  some  form  of 
wages  therefrom.  Students  at  the  universities  were  by  eccle- 
siastical courtesy  then,  clerics  (from  which  comes  the  word 
clerk,  one  who  can  read  and  write)  though  not  in  orders,  and 
it  was  because  of  this  that  the  university  was  able  to  maintain 
the  rights  of  students.  It  was  well  understood  that  after  gradu- 
ation men  might  take  up  the  secular  life  and  indeed  most  of 
them  did.  In  succeeding  chapters  we  shall  see  examples  of  this 
and  discuss  the  question  further.  Professors  at  the  universi- 


72  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ties  had  to  maintain  their  clerical  condition  so  that  even  profes- 
sors of  law  and  of  medicine  were  not  allowed  to  marry.  This 
law  continued  long  beyond  the  Thirteenth  Century,  however. 
Professors  of  medicine  were  the  first  to  be  freed  from  the  obli- 
gation of  celibacy,  but  not  until  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth 
Century  at  Paris,  while  other  professors  were  bound  thus  for  a 
full  century  later.  Certain  minor  teaching  positions  at  Oxford 
are  still  under  this  law,  which  evidently  has  seemed  to  have 
some  advantage  or  it  would  not  have  been  maintained. 

It  might  perhaps  be  thought  that  only  the  wealthier  class,  the 
sons  of  the  nobility  and  of  the  wealthy  merchants  of  the  cities 
had  opportunities  at  the  universities.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, the  vast  majority  of  the  students  was  drawn  from  the 
great  middle  class.  The  nobility  were  nearly  always  too  occu- 
pied with  their  pleasures  and  their  martial  duties  to  have  time 
for  the  higher  education.  The  tradition  that  a  nobleman  should 
be  an  educated  gentleman  had  not  yet  come  in.  Indeed  many 
of  the  nobility  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  rather  prided 
themselves  on  the  fact  that  they  not  only  had  no  higher  educa- 
tion, but  that  they  did  not  know  even  how  to  read  and  write. 
When  we  reflect,  then,  on  the  large  numbers  who  went  to  the 
universities,  it  adds  to  our  surprise  to  realize  that  they  were 
drawn  from  the  burgher  class.  It  is  evident  that  many  of  the 
sons  even  of  the  poor  were  afforded  opportunities  in  different 
ways  at  the  universities  of  the  time. 

Tradition  shows  that  from  the  earliest  time  there  were 
foundations  on  which  poor  students  could  live,  and  various 
arrangements  were  made  by  which,  aside  from  these,  they 
might  make  their  living  while  continuing  their  studies.  Work- 
ing one's  way  through  the  university  was  more  common  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  than  it  is  at  the  present  day,  though  we  are 
proud  of  the  large  numbers  who  now  succeed  in  the  double  task 
of  supporting  and  educating  themselves,  with  excellent  success 
in  both  enterprises.  There  are  many  stories  of  poor  students 
who  found  themselves  about  to  be  obliged  to  give  up  their 
studies,  encountering  patrons  of  various  kinds  who  enabled 
them  to  go  on  with  their  education. 

There  is  a  very  pretty  set  of  legends  with  regard  to  St. 
Edmund  of  Canterbury  in  this  matter.  He  bears  this  name  be- 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  73 

cause  he  was  afterward  the  sainted  primate  of  England.  For 
many  years  he  taught  at  the  University  of  Oxford.  The  story 
is  told  of  a  clerical  triend  sending  him  up  a  student  to  Oxford 
and  asking  that  his  bills  be  sent  to  him.  St.  Edmund's  answer 
was  that  he  would  not  be  robbed  of  an  opportunity  of  doing 
good  like  this,  and  he  took  upon  himself  the  burden  of  caring 
for  the  student.  At  the  time  there  were  many  others  dependent 
on  his  bounty  and  his  reputation  was  such  that  he  was  enabled 
to  help  a  great  many  through  the  benefactions  of  friends,  who 
found  no  higher  pleasure  in  life  than  being  able  to  come  gen- 
erously to  Edmund's  assistance  in  his  charities. 

Those  who  know  the  difficulty  of  managing  very  large 
bodies  of  students  will  wonder  inevitably,  how  the  medieval 
universities,  with  their  less  formal  and  less  complete  organiza- 
tions, succeeded  in  maintaining  discipline  for  all  these  thou- 
sands of  students.  Most  people  will  remember  at  once  all  the 
stories  of  roughness,  of  horse  play,  of  drinking  and  gaming  or 
worse  that  they  have  heard  of  the  medieval  students  and  will 
be  apt  to  conclude  that  they  are  not  to  be  wondered  at  after  all, 
since  it  must  have  been  practically  impossible  for  the  faculties 
of  universities  to  keep  order  among  such  vast  numbers.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  the  story  of  the  origin  and  mainte- 
nance of  discipline  in  these  universities  is  one  of  the  most  inter- 
esting features  of  university  life.  The  process  of  discipline  be- 
came in  itself  a  very  precious  part  of  education,  as  it  should  be 
of  course  in  any  well  regulated  institution  of  learning.  The 
very  fact,  moreover,  that  in  spite  of  these  large  numbers  and 
other  factors  that  we  shall  call  attention  to  in  a  moment,  com- 
paratively so  few  disgraceful  stories  of  university  life  have 
come  down  to  us,  and  the  other  and  still  more  important  fact 
that  the  universities  could  be  kept  so  constantly  at  the  attain- 
ment of  their  great  purpose  for  such  numbers,  is  itself  a  mag- 
nificent tribute  to  those  who  succeeded  in  doing  it,  and  to  the 
system  which  was  gradually  evolved,  not  by  the  faculty  alone 
but  by  teachers  and  students  for  university  government. 
^  With  regard  to  the  discipline  of  the  medieval  universities  not 
much  is  known  and  considerable  of  what  has  been  written  on 
this  obscure  subject  wears  an  unfavorable  tinge,  because  it  is 
unfortunately  true  that  "the  good  men  do  is  oft  interred  with 


74  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

their  bones"  while  the  evil  has  an  immortality  all  its  own.  The 
student  escapades  of  the  universities,  the  quarrels  between  town 
and  gown,  the  stories  of  the  evils  apparently  inevitable,  where 
many  young  men  are  congregated — the  hazing,  the  rough  horse 
play,  the  carousing,  the  immoralities — have  all  come  down  to 
us,  while  it  is  easy  to  miss  the  supreme  significance  of  the  en- 
thusiasm for  learning  that  in  these  difficult  times  gathered  so 
many  students  together  from  distant  parts  of  the  world,  when 
traveling  was  so  difficult  and  dangerous,  and  kept  them  at  the 
universities  for  long  years  in  spite  of  the  hardships  and  incon- 
veniences of  the  life.  With  regard  to  our  modern  universities 
the  same  thing  is  true,  and  the  outside  world  knows  much  more 
of  the  escapades  of  the  few,  the  little  scandals  of  college  life, 
that  scarcely  make  a  ripple  but  are  so  easily  exaggerated,  and 
so  frequently  repeated  and  lose  nothing  by  repetition,  the  waste 
of  time  in  athletics,  in  gambling,  in  social  things,  than  of  the 
earnest  work  and  the  successful  intellectual  progress  and  in- 
terests of  the  many.  This  should  be  quite  enough  to  make  the 
modern  university  man  very  slow  to  accept  the  supposed  pic- 
tures of  medieval  student  life,  which  are  founded  mainly  on 
the  worse  side  of  it.  Goodness  is  proverbially  uninteresting,  a 
happy  people  has  no  history  and  the  ordinary  life  of  the  uni- 
versity student  needs  a  patient  sympathetic  chronicler ;  and  such 
the  medieval  universities  have  not  found  as  yet.  But  they  do  not 
need  many  allowances,  if  it  will  only  be  remembered  under  what 
discouragements  they  labored  and  how  much  they  accom- 
plished. 

The  reputation  of  the  medieval  universities  has  suffered 
from  this  very  human  tendency  to  be  interested  in  what  is  evil 
and  to  neglect  the  good.  Even  as  it  is,  however,  a  good  deal 
with  regard  to  the  discipline  of  the  universities  in  the  early 
times  is  known  and  does  not  lose  in  interest  from  the  fact,  that 
the  main  factor  in  it  was  a  committee  of  the  students  themselves 
working  in  conjunction  with  the  faculty,  and  thus  anticipating 
v/hat  is  most  modern  in  the  development  of  the  disciplinary 
regime  of  our  up-to-date  universities.  At  first  apparently,  in 
the  schools  from  which  the  universities  originated  there  was  no 
thought  of  the  necessity  for  discipline.  The  desire  for  educa- 
tion was  considered  to  be  sufficient  to  keep  men  occupied  in 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  75 

such  a  way  that  further  discipline  would  not  be  necessary.  It 
can  readily  be  understood  that  the  crowds  that  flocked  to  hear 
Abelard  in  Paris,  and  who  were  sufficiently  interested  to  follow 
him  out  to  the  Desert  of  the  Paraclete  when  he  was  no  longer 
allowed  to  continue  his  lectures  in  connection  with  the  school 
at  Paris,  would  have  quite  enough  of  ruling  from  the  internal 
forum  of  their  supreme  interest,  not  to  need  any  discipline  in 
the  external  forum. 

In  the  course  ot  time,  however,  with  the  coming  of  even 
greater  numbers  to  the  University  of  Paris,  and  especially  when 
the  attendance  ran  up  into  many  thousands,  some  form  of  school 
discipline  became  an  absolute  necessity.  This  developed  of 
itself  and  in  a  very  practical  way.  The  masters  seem  to  have 
had  very  little  to  do  with  it  at  the  beginning  since  they  occupied 
themselves  entirely  with  their  teaching  and  preparation  for  lec- 
tures. What  was  to  become  later  one  of  the  principal  instru- 
ments of  discipline  was  at  first  scarcely  more  than  a  social  or- 
ganization among  the  students.  Those  who  came  from  dif- 
ferent countries  were  naturally  attracted  to  one  another,  and 
were  more  ready  to  help  each  other.  When  students  first  came 
they  were  welcomed  by  their  compatriots  who  took  care  to  keep 
them  from  being  imposed  upon,  enabled  them  to  secure  suitable 
quarters  and  introduced  them  to  university  customs  generally, 
so  that  they  might  be  able  to  take  advantage,  as  soon  as  pos- 
sible, of  the  educational  opportunities. 

The  friendships  thus  fostered  gradually  grew  into  formal  or- 
ganizations, the  so-called  "nations."  These  began  to  take  form 
just  before  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  They 
made  it  their  duty  to  find  lodgings  for  their  student  compatriots, 
and  evidently  also  to  supply  food  on  some  cooperative  plan  for 
at  least  the  poorer  students.  Whenever  students  of  a  particular 
nationality  were  injured  in  any  way,  their  "nation"  as  a  formal 
organization  took  up  their  cause  and  maintained  their  rights, 
even  to  the  extent  of  an  appeal  to  formal  process  of  law  before 
the  magistrates,  if  necessary.  The  nations  were  organized  be- 
fore the  faculties  in  the  universities  were  formally  recognized 
as  independent  divisions  of  the  institution,  and  they  acted  as 
intermediaries  between  the  university  head  and  the  students, 
making  themselves  responsible  for  discipline  to  no  slight  de- 


76  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

gree.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  in  Paris  all 
the  students  belonged  to  one  or  other  of  four  nations,  the 
Picard,  the  Norman,  the  French,  which  embraced  Italians, 
Spaniards,  Greeks  and  Orientals,  and  the  English  which  em- 
braced the  English,  Irish,  Germans,  Poles  (heterogeneous  col- 
lection we  would  consider  it  in  these  modern  days)  and  in  addi- 
tion all  other  students  from  the  North  of  Europe. 

Professor  Laurie,  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh,  in  his  Rise 
and  Early  Constitution  of  Universities  in  the  International 
Educational  Series*  says : 

"The  subdivisions  of  the  nations  were  determined  by  the  lo- 
calities from  which  the  students  and  masters  came.  Each  sub- 
division elected  its  own  dean,  and  kept  its  own  matriculation- 
book  and  money-chest.  The  whole  "nation"  was  represented,  it 
is  true,  by  the  elected  procurators ;  but  the  deans  of  the  sub- 
divisions were  regarded  as  important  officials,  and  were  fre- 
quently, if  not  always,  assessors  of  the  procurators.  The  pro- 
curators, four  in  number,  were  elected,  not  by  the  students  as 
in  Bologna  and  Padua,  but  by  the  students  and  masters.  Each 
nation  with  its  procurator  and  deans  was  an  independent  body, 
passing  its  own  statutes  and  rules,  and  exercising  supervision 
over  the  lodging-houses  of  the  students.  They  had  each  a  seal 
as  distinguished  from  the  university  seal,  and  each  procurator 
stood  to  his  "nation"  in  the  same  relation  as  the  Rector  did  to 
the  whole  university.  The  Rector,  again,  was  elected  by  the 
procurators,  who  sat  as  his  assessors,  and  together  they  con- 
stituted the  governing  body ;  but  this  for  purposes  of  discipline, 
protection  and  defense  of  privileges  chiefly,  the  consortium 
magistrorum  regulating  the  schools.  But  so  independent  were 
the  nations  that  the  question  whether  each  had  power  to  make 
statutes  that  overrode  those  of  the  universitas,  was  still  a  ques- 
tion so  late  as  the  beginning  of  the  Seventeenth  Century." 

It  is  typical  of  the  times  that  the  governing  system  should 
thus  have  grown  up  of  itself  and  from  amongst  the  students, 
rather  than  that  it  should  have  been  organized  by  the  teachers 

*lhe  Rise  and  Early  Constitution  ot  Universities,  with  £  survey  of 
Medieval  Education,  by  S.  S.  Laurie,  LL.D.,  Professor  of  the  Insti- 
tutes and  History  of  Education  in  the  University  of  Edinburgh.  New 
York,  D.  Appleton  &  Company,  1901.  . 


NUMBER  OF  STUDENTS.  77 

and  imposed  upon  the  university.  The  nations  represented  the 
rise  of  that  democratic  spirit,  which  was  to  make  itself  felt  in  the 
claims  for  the  recognition  of  rights  for  all  the  people  in  most  of 
the  countries  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  undoubtedly 
the  character  of  the  government  of  the  student  body  at  the 
universities  fostered  this  spirit  and  is  therefore  to  a  noteworthy 
degree,  responsible  for  the  advances  in  the  direction  of  liberty 
which  are  chronicled  during  this  great  century.  This  was  a 
form  of  unconscious  education  but  none  the  less  significant 
for  that,  and  eminently  practical  in  its  results.  At  this  time  in 
Europe  there  was  no  place  where  the  members  of  the  commun- 
ity who  flocked  in  largest  numbers  to  the  universities,  the  sons 
of  the  middle  classes,  could  have  any  opportunities  to  share  in 
government  or  learn  the  precious  lessons  of  such  participation, 
except  at  the  universities.  There  gradually  came  an  effort 
on  the  part  of  the  faculties  to  lessen  many  of  the  rights  of  the 
nations  of  the  universities,  but  the  very  struggle  to  maintain 
these  on  the  part  of  the  student  body,  was  of  itself  a  precious 
training  against  the  usurpation  of  privileges  that  was  to  be 
of  great  service  later  in  the  larger  arena  of  national  politics, 
and  the  effects  of  which  can  be  noted  in  every  country  in  Eu- 
rope, nowhere  more  than  in  England,  where  the  development 
of  law  and  liberty  was  to  give  rise  to  a  supreme  heritage  of 
democratic  jurisprudence  for  the  JEnglish  speaking  peoples  of 
all  succeeding  generations. 


78  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

V 

POST-GRADUATE  WORK  AT  THE  UNIVERSITIES. 


In  modern  times  it  has  often  been  said  that  no  university  can 
be  considered  to  be  doing  its  proper  work  unless,  besides  teach- 
ing, it  is  also  adding  to  the  existing  body  of  knowledge  by  orig- 
inal research.  Because  of  unfortunate  educational  traditions, 
probably  the  last  thing  in  the  world  that  would  enter  into  the 
minds  of  most  people  to  conceive  as  likely  to  be  found  in  the 
history  of  the  universities  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  would  be 
original  research  in  any  form.  In  spite  of  this  almost  universal 
false  impression,  original  work  of  the  most  valuable  kind,  for 
much  of  which  workers  would  be  considered  as  amply  deser- 
ving of  their  doctorates  in  the  various  faculties  of  the  post- 
graduate departments  of  the  most  up-to-date  of  modern  univer- 
sities, was  constantly  being  accomplished  during  this  wonderful 
century.  It  is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  with  this  phase  of  univer- 
sity activity  that  the  modern  educator  is  sure  to  have  more 
sympathy  than  with  any  other,  once  the  significant  details  of  the 
work  become  clear. 

All  surprise  that  surpassing  original  work  was  accomplished 
will  cease  when  it  is  recalled  that,  besides  creating  the  univer- 
sities themselves,  this  century  gave  us  the  great  Cathedrals — 
a  well-spring  of  originality,  and  a  literature  in  every  civilized 
country  of  Europe  that  has  been  an  inspiration  to  many  sub- 
sequent generations.  At  last  men  had  the  time  to  devote  to 
the  things  of  the  mind.  During  what  are  called  the  Dark  Ages, 
a  term  that  must  ever  be  used  with  the  realization  that  there 
are  many  bright  points  of  light  in  them,  men  had  been  occupied 
with  wars  and  civic  and  political  dissensions  of  all  kinds,  and 
had  been  gradually  climbing  back  to  the  heights  of  interest  in 
intellectual  matters  which  had  been  theirs  before  the  invasion 
of  the  barbarians  and  the  migration  of  nations.  With  the  re- 
birth of  intellectual  interests  there  came  an  intense  curiosity  to 
know  everything  and  to  investigate  every  manifestation.  Every- 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  79 

thing  that  men  touched  was  novel,  and  the  wonderful  advances 
they  made  can  only  be  realized  from  actual  consultation  of  their 
works,  while  the  reader  puts  himself  as  far  as  possible  at  the 
same  mental  point  of  view  from  which  they  surveyed  the  world 
and  their  relations  to  it. 

The  modern  university  prides  itself  on  the  number  of 
volumes  written  by  its  professors  and  makes  it  a  special  feature 
of  its  announcements  to  call  attention  to  its  at  least  supposed 
additions  to  knowledge  in  this  mode.  It  must  have  been  im- 
mensely more  difficult  to  preserve  the  writings  of  the  profes- 
sors of  the  medieval  universities  for  they  had  to  be  copied  out 
laboriously  by  hand,  yet  we  have  an  enormous  number  of  large 
volumes  of  their  works,  on  nearly  every  intellectual  topic,  that 
have  been  carefully  preserved.  There  are  some  twenty  closely 
printed  large  folio  volumes  of  the  writings  of  Albertus  Magnus 
that  have  come  down  to  us.  For  two  centuries,  until  the  time 
of  printing,  ardent  students  must  have  been  satisfied  to  spend 
much  time  in  preserving  these.  While  mainly  devoted  to  the- 
ology, they  treat  of  nearly  everything  else,  and  at  least  one  of 
the  folio  volumes  is  taken  up  almost  exclusively  with  physical 
science.  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  has  as  many  volumes  to  his 
credit  and  his  work  is  even  of  more  importance.  Duns  Scotus 
died  at  a  very  early  age,  scarcely  more  than  forty,  yet  his  writ- 
ings are  voluminously  extensive  and  have  been  carefully  pre- 
served, for  few  men  had  as  enthusiastic  students  as  he.  Alas ! 
that  his  name  should  be  preserved  for  most  people  only  in  the 
familiar  satiric  appellation  'dunce/  The  modern  educator  will 
most  rejoice  at  the  fact  that  the  students  of  the  time  must  have 
indeed  been  devoted  to  their  masters  to  set  themselves  to  the 
task  of  copying  out  their  work  so  faithfully  for,  as  Cardinal 
Newman  has  pointed  out,  it  is  the  personal  influence  of  the 
master,  rather  than  the  greatness  of  the  institution,  that  makes 
education  effective. 

First  with  regard  to  philosophy,  the  mistress  of  all  studies, 
whose  throne  has  been  shaken  but  not  shattered  in  these  ul- 
timate times.  After  all  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  this  was 
the  great  century  of  the  development  of  scholastic  philosophy. 
While  this  scholastic  philosophy  is  supposed  by  many  students 
of  modern  philosophy  to  be  a  thing  of  the  past,  it  still  continues 


80  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

to  be  the  basis  of  the  philosophical  teaching  in  the  Catholic 
seminaries  and  universities  throughout  the  world.  Catholic 
philosophers  are  well  known  as  conservative  thinkers  and  writ- 
ers, and  yet  are  perfectly  free  to  confess  that  they  consider 
themselves  the  nearer'to  truth  the  nearer  they  are  to  the  great 
scholastic  thinkers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Even  in  the 
circle  of  students  of  philosophy  who  are  outside  the  influence 
of  scholasticism,  there  is  no  doubt  that  in  recent  years  an 
opinion  much  more  favorable  to  the  Schoolmen  has  gradually 
arisen.  This  has  been  due  to  a  study  of  scholastic  sources.  Only 
those  despise  and  talk  slightingly  of  scholasticism  who  either 
do  not  know  it  at  all  or  know  it  only  at  second  hand.  With  re- 
gard to  the  system  of  thought,  as  such,  ever  is  it  true,  that  the 
more  close  the  acquaintanceship  the  more  respect  there  is  for  it. 

With  regard  to  theology  the  case  is  even  stronger  than 
with  regard  to  philosophy.  Practically  all  of  the  great  authori- 
ties in  theology  belong  to  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  is  true 
that  men  like  Saint  Anselm  lived  before  this  time  and  were 
leaders  in  the  great  movement  that  culminated  in  our  century. 
Saint  Anselm's  book,  Cur  Deus  Homo,  is  indeed  one  of  the  best 
examples  of  the  combination  of  scholastic  philosophy  and  the- 
ology that  could  well  be  cited.  It  is  a  triumph  of  logical  rea- 
soning applied  to  religious  belief.  Besides,  it  is  a  great  classic 
and  any  one  who  can  read  it  unmoved  by  admiration  for  the 
thinker  who,  so  many  centuries  ago,  could  so  trenchantly  lay 
down  his  thesis  and  develop  it,  must  be  lacking  in  pome  of  the 
qualities  of  human  admiration.  The  writers  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  in  theology  are  beyond  even  Anselm  in  their  marvel- 
ous powers  of  systematizing  thought.  One  need  only  men- 
tion such  names  as  Albertus  Magnus,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Bona- 
venture,  Duns  Scotus,  and  Raymond  Lully  to  make  those  who 
are  at  all  acquainted  with  the  history  of  the  time  realize,  that 
this  is  not  an  idle  expression  of  the  enthusiasm  of  a  special 
votary  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 

As  we  shall  see  in  discussing  the  career  of  Saint  Thomas 
Aquinas,  the  Catholic  Church  still  continues  to  teach  scholastic 
theology  on  exactly  the  same  lines  as  were  laid  down  by  this 
great  doctor  of  the  church  in  his  teaching  at  the  University 
of  Paris.  Amid  the  crumbling  of  many  Christian  systems  of 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  81 

thought,  as  upheld  by  the  various  protestant  sects,  there  has 
been  a  very  general  realization  that  the  Catholic  Church  has 
built  up  the  only  edifice  of  Christian  apologetics,  which  will 
stand  the  storms  of  time  and  the  development  of  human  knowl- 
edge. Confessedly  this  edifice  is  founded  on  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury scholasticism.  Pope  Leo  XIII. ,  than  whom,  even  in  the 
estimation  of  those  who  are  least  sympathetic  toward  his  high 
office,  there  was  no  man  of  more  supremely  practical  intelli- 
gence in  our  generation,  insisted  that  St.  Thomas  Aquinas 
must  in  general  principle  at  least,  be  the  groundwork  of  the 
teaching  of  philosophy  and  theology  as  they  are  to  form  the 
minds  of  future  Catholic  apologists. 

The  scholastic  theology  and  philosophy  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  have  come  to  us  in  absolute  purity.  The  huge  tomes 
which  represent  the  indefatigable  labors  of  these  ardent  schol- 
ars were  well  preserved  by  the  subsequent  generation  which 
thought  so  much  of  them,  and  in  spite  of  the  absence  of  print- 
ing have  come  down  to  us  in  perfectly  clear  texts.  It  is  easy  to 
neglect  them  and  to  say  that  a  study  of  them  is  not  worth 
while.  They  represent,  however,  the  post-graduate  work  and 
the  research  in  the  department  of  philosophy  and  theology  of 
these  days,  and  any  university  of  modern  time  would  consider 
itself  honored  by  having  their  authors  among  its  professors 
and  alumni.  Any  one  who  does  not  think  so  need  only  turn  to 
the  volumes  themselves  and  read  them  with  understanding  and 
sympathy,  and  there  will  be  another  convert  to  the  ranks  of 
that  growing  multitude  of  scholars,  who  have  learned  to  ap- 
preciate the  marvelous  works  of  our  university  colleagues  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century. 

With  regard  to  law,  not  much  need  be  said  here,  since  it  is 
well  understood  that  the  foundations  of  our  modern  jurispru- 
dence (see  chapters  on  Legal  Origins),  as  well  as  the  methods 
of  teaching  law,  were  laid  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  and  the 
universities  were  the  most  active  factors,  direct  and  indirect, 
in  this  work.  The  University  of  Bologna  developed  from  a  law 
school.  Toward  the  end  of  the  Twelfth  Century  Irnerius  re- 
vived the  study  of  the  old  Roman  law  and  put  the  curriculum  of 
-modern  Civil  Law  on  a  firm  basis.  A  little  later  Gratian  made 
his  famous  collection  of  decretals,  which  are  the  basis  of  Canon 


82  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Law.  Great  popes,  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  beginning 
with  Innocent  III.,  and  continuing  through  such  worthy  emu- 
lators as  Gregory  IX.  and  Boniface  VIII. ,  made  it  the  special 
glory  of  their  pontificates  to  collect  the  decrees  of  their  prede- 
cessors and  arrange  and  publish  them,  so  that  they  might  be 
readily  available  for  consultation. 

French  law  assumed  its  modern  form,  and  the  basis  of 
French  jurisprudence  was  laid,  under  Louis  IX.,  who  called  to 
his  assistance,  in  this  matter,  the  Professors  of  Law  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Paris,  with  many  of  whom  he  was  on  the  most  in- 
timate terms.  His  cousin,  Ferdinand  of  Castile,  laid  the  foun- 
dation of  the  Spanish  law  about  the  same  time  under  almost 
similar  circumstances,  and  with  corresponding  help.  The  study 
of  law  in  the  English  universities  helped  to  the  formulation 
of  the  principles  of  the  English  Common  Law  in  such  simple 
connected  form  as  made  them  readily  accessible  for  con- 
sultation. Just  before  the  beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  Bracton,  of  whose  work  much  more  will 
be  said  in  a  subsequent  chapter,  drew  up  the  digest  of  the  Eng- 
lish Common  Law,  which  has  been  the  basis  of  English  juris- 
prudence ever  since.  It  took  just  about  a  century  for  these  coun- 
tries, previously  without  proper  codification  of  the  principles 
of  their  laws,  to  complete  the  fundamental  work  to  such  a  de- 
gree, that  it  is  still  the  firm  substructure  on  which  rests  all  our 
modern  laws.  Legal  origins,  in  our  modern  sense,  came  not 
long  before  the  Thirteenth  Century;  at  its  end  the  work  was 
finished,  to  all  intents  and  purposes.  Of  the  influence  of  the 
universities  and  of  the  university  law  departments,  in  all  this 
there  can  be  no  doubt.  The  incentive,  undoubtedly,  came  from 
their  teachings.  The  men  who  did  so  much  for  legal  origins 
of  such  far-reaching  importance,  were  mainly  students  of  the 
universities  of  the  time,  whose  enthusiasm  for  work  had  not 
subsided  with  the  obtaining  of  their  degrees. 

It  is  in  medicine,  however,  much  more  than  in  law  or  the- 
ology, that  the  eminently  practical  character  of  university  teach- 
ing during  the  Thirteenth  Century  can  be  seen,  at  least  in 
(he  form  in  which  it  will  appeal  to  a  scientific  generation.  We 
are  so  accustomed  to  think  that  anything  like  real  progress  in 
medicine,  and  especially  in  surgery,  has  only  come  in  very 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  83 

recent  years,  that  it  is  a  source  of  great  surprise  to  find  how 
much  these  earnest  students  of  a  long  distant  century  anticipa- 
ted the  answers  to  problems,  the  solutions  of  which  are  usually 
supposed  to  be  among  the  most  modern  advances.  Professor 
Allbutt,  the  Regius  professor  of  Physic  in  the  University  of 
Cambridge,  a  position,  the  occupant  of  which  is  always  a  leader 
in  English  medical  thought,  the  present  professor  being  one  of 
the  world's  best  authorities  in  the  history  of  medicine,  recently 
pointed  out  some  of  these  marvels  of  old-time  medicine  and  sur- 
gery. In  an  address  On  the  Historical  Relations  of  Medicine 
and  Surgery  to  the  end  of  the  Sixteenth  Century,  delivered  at 
the  Congress  of  Arts  and  Sciences  at  the  St  Louis  Exposition 
in  1904,  he  (Prof.  Allbutt)  spoke  with  regard  to  one  of  the 
great  university  medical  teachers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  as 
follows : 

"Both  for  his  own  great  merits,  as  an  original  and  inde- 
pendent observer,  and  as  the  master  of  Lanfranc,  William 
Salicet  (Guglielmo  Salicetti  of  Piacenza,  in  Latin  G.  Placen- 
tinus  de  Saliceto — now  Cadeo),  was  eminent  among  the  great 
Italian  physicians  of  the  latter  half  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
Now  these  great  Italians  were  as  distinguished  in  surgery  as  in 
medicine,  and  William  was  one  of  the  protestants  of  the  period 
against  the  division  of  surgery  from  inner  medicine ;  a  division 
which  he  regarded  as  a  separation  of  medicine  from  intimate 
touch  with  nature.  Like  Lanfranc  and  the  other  great  sur- 
geons of  the  Italian  tradition,  and  unlike  Franco  and  Am- 
broise  Pare,  he  had  the  advantage  of  the  liberal  university  edu- 
cation of  Italy;  but,  like  Pare  and  Wurtz,  he  had  large  prac- 
tical experience  in  hospital  and  on  the  battlefield.  He  practised 
first  at  Bologna,  afterward  in  Verona.  William  fully  recog- 
nised that  surgery  cannot  be  learned  from  books  only.  His 
Surgery  contains  many  case  histories,  for  he  rightly  opined 
that  good  notes  of  cases  are  the  soundest  foundation  of  good 
practice;  and  in  this  opinion  and  method  Lanfranc  followed 
him.  William  discovered  that  dropsy  may  be  due  to  a  'durities 
renum';  he  substituted  the  knife  for  the  Arabist  abuse  of  the 
cautery ;  he  investigated  the  causes  of  the  failure  of  healing  by 
first  intention ;  he  described  the  danger  of  wounds  of  the  neck ; 
he  sutured  divided  nerves ;  he  forwarded  the  diagnosis  of  sup- 


84  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

purative  disease  of  the  hip,  and  he  referred  chancre  and  phage- 
dsena  to  their  real  causes. 

This  paragraph  sets  forth  some  almost  incredible  anticipa- 
tions of  what  are  usually  considered  among  the  most  modern 
phases  of  medicine  and  surgery.  Perhaps  the  most  surprising 
thing  is  the  simple  statement  that  Salicet  recognized  that  sur- 
gery cannot  be  learned  from  books  alone.  His  case  histories 
are  instructive  even  to  the  modern  surgeon  who  reads  them. 
His  insistence  on  his  students  making  careful  notes  of  their 
cases  as  the  soundest  foundation  of  progress  in  surgery,  is  a 
direct  contradiction  of  nearly  everything  that  has  been  said 
in  recent  years  about  medieval  medicine  and  especially  the 
teaching  of  medicine.  (See  Appendix.) 

William's  great  pupil,  Lanfranc,  followed  him  in  this,  and 
Lanfranc  encouraged  the  practise  at  the  University  of  Paris. 
There  is  a  note-book  of  a  student  at  the  University  of  Paris, 
made  toward  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  carefully  pre- 
served in  the  Museum  of  the  University  of  Berlin.  This  note- 
book was  kept  during  Lanfranc's  teaching  and  contains  some 
sketches  of  dissections,  as  well  as  some  illustrations  of  opera- 
tive procedures,  as  studied  with  that  celebrated  surgeon.  The 
tradition  of  case  histories  continued  at  the  University  of  Paris 
down  to  the  beginning  of  modern  surgery. 

Some  of  the  doctrines  in  medicine  that  William  of  Salicet 
stated  so  clearly,  sound  surprisingly  modern.  The  connec- 
tion, for  instance,  between  dropsy  and  durities  renum  (harden- 
ing of  the  kidneys)  shows  how  wonderfully  observant  the  old 
master  was.  At  the  present  time  we  know  very  little  more 
about  the  dropsical  condition  associated  with  chronic  Bright's 
disease  than  the  fact  that  it  constantly  occurs  where  there  is  a 
sclerosis  or  contraction  of  the  kidney.  Bright  in  his  study  of 
albuminuria  and  contracted  kidney  practically  taught  us  no 
more  than  this,  except  that  he  added  the  further  symptom  of  the 
presence  of  albumin  in  the  urine.  It  must  have  been  only  as  the 
result  of  many  carefully  studied  cases,  followed  by  autopsies, 
that  any  such  doctrine  could  have  come  into  existence.  There 
is  a  dropsy  that  occurs  with  heart  disease ;  there  is  also  a  dropsy 
in  connection  with  certain  affections  of  the  liver,  and  yet  the 
most  frequent  cause  is  just  this  hardening  of  the  kidneys 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  85 

spoken  of  by  this  middle-of-the-Thirteenth  Century  Italian 
professor  of  medicine,  who,  if  we  would  believe  so  many  of 
the  historians  of  medicine,  was  not  supposed  to  occupy  himself 
at  all  with  ante  and  post-mortem  studies  of  patients,  but  with 
the  old-time  medical  authorities. 

Almost  more  surprising  than  the  question  of  dropsy  is  the 
investigation  as  to  the  causes  of  the  failure  of  healing  by  first 
intention.  The  modern  surgeon  is  very  apt  to  think  that  he  is 
the  only  one  who  ever  occupied  himself  with  the  thought,  that 
wounds  might  be  made  to  heal  by  first  intention  and  without 
the  occurrence  of  suppuration  or  granulation.  Certainly  no  one 
would  suspect  any  interest  in  the  matter  as  far  back  as  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  William  of  Salicet,  however,  and  Lan- 
franc,  both  of  them  occupied  themselves  much  with  this  ques- 
tion and  evidently  looked  at  it  from  a  very  practical  stand- 
point.  Many  careful  observations  must  have  been  made  and 
many  sources  of  observational  error  eliminated  to  enable  these 
men  to  realize  the  possibilities  of  primary  union,  especially, 
knowing  as  they  did,  nothing  at  all  about  the  external  causes 
of  suppuration  and  considering,  as  did  surgeons  for  nearly 
seven  centuries  afterward,  that  it  was  because  of  sometliing 
within  the  patient's  tissues  that  the  cases  of  suppuration  had 
their  rise. 

Unfortunately,  the  pioneer  work  done  by  William  and  his 
great  disciple  did  not  have  that  effect  upon  succeeding  gen- 
erations which  it  should  have  had.  There  was  a  question  in 
men's  minds  as  to  whether  nature  worked  better  by  primary 
union  or  by  means  of  the  suppurative  process.  In  the  next 
century  surgeons  took  the  wrong  horn  of  the  dilemma  and 
even  so  distinguished  a  surgeon  as  Guy  de  Chauliac,  who  has 
been  called,  not  without  good  cause,  the  father  of  surgery,  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  suppuration  was  practically  a  necessary 
process  in  the  healing  of  large  wounds  at  least,  and  that  it  must 
be  encouraged  rather  than  discouraged.  This  doctrine  did  not 
have  its  first  set-back  until  the  famous  incident  in  Ambroise 
Fare's  career,  when  one  morning  after  a  battle,  coming  to  his 
patients  expecting  to  find  many  of  them  very  severely  ill,  he 
found  them  on  the  contrary  in  better  condition  than  the  others 
for  whom  he  had  no  forebodings.  In  accord  with  old  custom 


86  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

he  poured  boiling  oil  into  the  wounds  of  all  patients,  but  the 
great  surgeon's  supply  of  oil  had  failed  the  day  before  and  he 
used  plain  water  to  cleanse  the  wounds  of  a  number,  fearing  the 
worst  for  them,  however,  because  of  the  poison  that  must 
necessarily  stay  in  their  wounds  and  then  had  the  agreeable 
disappointment  of  finding  these  patients  in  much  better  con- 
dition than  those  whom  he  had  treated  with  all  the  rules  of  his 
art,  as  they  then  were.  Even  this  incident,  however,  did  not 
serve  to  correct  entirely  the  old  idea  as  to  the  value  of  sup- 
puration and  down  to  Lister's  time,  that  is  almost  the  last 
quarter  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  there  is  still  question  of  the 
value  of  suppuration  in  expediting  the  healing  of  wounds,  and 
we  hear  of  laudable  pus  and  of  the  proper  inflammatory  reac- 
tion that  is  expected  to  bring  about  wound  repair. 

The  danger  of  wounds  of  the  neck  is,  of  course,  not  a  mod- 
ern doctrine,  and  yet  very  few  people  would  think  for  a  mo- 
ment that  it  could  be  traced  back  to  the  middle  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  and  to  a  practical  teacher  of  surgery  in  a  me- 
dieval Italian  university.  Here  once  more  there  is  evidence  of 
the  work  of  a  careful  observer  who  has  seen  patients  expire  in 
a  few  minutes  as  the  result  of  some  serious  incident  during  the 
course  of  operations  upon  the  neck.  He  did  not  realize  that 
the  danger  was  due,  in  many  cases,  to  the  sucking  in  of  air 
into  the  large  veins,  but  even  at  the  present  time  this  question 
is  not  wholly  settled  and  the  problem  as  to  the  danger  of  the 
presence  of  air  is  still  the  subject  of  investigation. 

As  to  the  suture  of  divided  nerves,  it  would  ordinarily  and 
as  a  matter  of  course  be  claimed  by  most  modern  historians 
of  surgery  and  by  practically  all  surgeons,  as  an  affair  entirely 
of  the  last  half  century.  William  of  Salicet,  however,  neglec- 
ted none  of  the  ordinary  surgical  procedures  that  could  be  un- 
dertaken under  the  discouraging  surgical  circumstances  in 
which  he.  lived.  The  limitations  of  anesthesia,  though  there 
was  much  more  of  this  aid  than  there  has  commonly  been  any 
idea  of,  and  the  frequent  occurrence  of  suppuration  must  have 
been  constant  sources  of  disheartenment.  His  insistence  on 
the  use  of  the  knife  rather  than  on  the  cautery  shows  how 
much  he  appreciated  the  value  of  proper  healing.  It  is  from 
such  a  man  that  we  might  expect  the  advance  by  careful  in- 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  87 

vestigation  as  to  just  what  tissues  had  been  injured,  with  the 
idea  of  bringing  them  together  in  such  juxtaposition  as  would 
prevent  loss  of  function  and  encourage  rapid  and  perfect  union. 

Perhaps  to  the  ordinary  individual  William's  reference  of 
certain  known  venereal  affections  to  their  proper  cause,  will  be 
the  most  astonishing  in  this  marvelous  list  of  anticipations  of 
what  is  supposed  to  be  very  modern.  The  whole  subject  of 
venereal  disease  in  anything  like  a  scientific  treatment  of  it  is 
supposed  to  date  from  the  early  part  of  the  Sixteenth  Century. 
There  is  even  question  in  certain  minds  as  to  whether  the 
venereal  diseases  did  not  come  into  existence,  or  at  least  were 
not  introduced  from  America  or  from  some  other  distant  coun- 
try that  the  Europeans  had  been  exploring  about  this  time. 
William's  studies  in  this  subject,  however,  serve  to  show  that 
nothing  escaped  his  watchful  eye  and  that  he  was  in  the  best 
sense  of  the  word  a  careful  observer  and  must  have  been  an 
eminently  suggestive  and  helpful  teacher. 

What  has  thus  been  learned  about  him  will  serve  of  itself  and 
without  more  ado,  to  stamp  all  that  has  been  said  about  the  un- 
practical character  of  the  medical  teaching  of  the  medieval 
universities  as  utterly  unfounded.  Because  men  have  not  taken 
the  trouble  to  look  up  the  teaching  of  these  times,  and  because 
their  works  were  until  recent  years  buried  in  old  folios,  difficult 
to  obtain  and  still  more  difficult  to  read  when  obtained,  it  has 
been  easy  to  ignore  their  merit  and  even  to  impugn  the  value 
of  their  teaching  completely.  William  of  Salicet  was  destined, 
moreover,  to  be  surpassed  in  some  ways  by  his  most  distin- 
guished pupil,  Lanfranc,  who  taught  at  the  University  of  Paris 
at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Of  Lanfranc,  in  the 
address  already  quoted  from,  Professor  Allbutt  has  one  very 
striking  paragraph  that  shows  how  progressive  was  the  work 
of  this  great  French  surgeon,  and  how  fruitful  had  been  the 
suggestive  teaching  of  his  great  master.  He  says : 

"Lanfranc's  'Chirurgia  Magna'  was  a  great  work,  written 
by  a  reverent  but  independent  follower  of  Salicet.  He  distin- 
guished between  venous  and  arterial  hemorrhage,  and  used 
styptics  (rabbit's  fur,  aloes,  and  white  of  egg  was  a  popular 
styptic  in  elder  surgery),  digital  compression  for  an  hour,  or 
in  severe  cases  ligature.  His  chapter  on  injuries  of  the  head 


88  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

is  one  of  the  classics  of  medieval  surgery.  Clerk  (cleric)  as 
he  was,  Lanfranc  nevertheless  saw  but  the  more  clearly  the 
danger  of  separating  surgery  from  medicine." 

Certain  assertions  in  this  paragraph  deserve,  as  in  the  case 
of  Lanfranc's  master,  to  be  discussed,  because  of  their  antici- 
pations of  what  is  sometimes  thought  to  be  very  modern  in 
surgery.  The  older  surgeons  are  supposed  to  have  feared 
hemorrhage  very  much.  It  is  often  asserted  that  they  knew  lit- 
tle or  nothing  about  the  ligature  and  that  their  control  of 
hemorrhage  was  very  inadequate.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  how- 
ever, it  was  not  primary  hemorrhage  that  the  old  surgeons 
feared,  but  secondary  hemorrhage.  Suppuration  often  led  to 
the  opening  of  an  important  artery,  and  this  accident,  as  can 
well  be  understood,  was  very  much  dreaded.  Surgeons  would 
lose  their  patients  before  they  could  come  to  their  relief.  How 
thoroughly  Lanfranc  knew  how  to  control  primary  hemorrhage 
can  be  appreciated  from  the  quotation  just  made  from  Dr.  All- 
butt's  address.  The  ligature  is  sometimes  said  to  have  been  an 
invention  of  Ambroise  Pare,  but,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  had  been 
in  use  for  at  least  three  centuries  before  his  time,  and  perhaps 
even  longer. 

Usually  it  is  considered  that  the  difficult  chapter  of  head 
injuries,  with  all  the  problems  that  it  involves  in  diagnosis  and 
treatment,  is  a  product  of  the  Nineteenth  Century.  Hence  do 
we  read,  with  all  the  more  interest,  Allbutt's  declaration  that 
Lanfranc  wrote  what  is  practically  a  classical  monograph,  on 
the  subject.  It  is  not  so  surprising,  then,  to  find  that  the  great 
French  surgeon  was  far  ahead  of  his  generation  in  other  mat- 
ters, or  that  he  should  even  have  realized  the  danger  of  separat- 
ing surgery  from  medicine.  Both  the  Regius  professors  of 
medicine  at  the  two  great  English  universities,  Cambridge  and 
Oxford,  have,  since  the  beginning  of  the  Twentieth  Century, 
made  public  expression  of  their  opinion  that  the  physician 
should  see  more  of  the  work  of  the  surgeon,  and  should  not 
depend  on  the  autopsy  room  for  his  knowledge  of  the  results 
of  internal  disease.  Professor  Osier,  particularly,  has  empha- 
sized his  colleague,  Professor  Allbutt's  opinion  in  this  matter. 
That  a  surgical  professor  at  the  University  of  Paris,  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  should  have  anticipated  these  two  leaders 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  89 

of  medical  thought  in  the  Twentieth  Century,  would  not  be 
so  surprising,  only  that  unfortunately  the  history  of  medieval 
teaching  has,  because  of  prejudice  and  a  lamentable  tradition, 
not  been  read  aright. 

Occasionally  one  finds  a  startling  bit  of  anticipation  of  what 
is  most  modern,  in  medicine  as  well  as  in  surgery.  For  in- 
stance, toward  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  a  distin- 
guished English  professor  of  medicine,  known  as  Gilbert,  the 
Englishman,  was  teaching  at  Montpelier,  and  among  other 
things,  was  insisting  that  the  rooms  of  patients  suffering  from 
smallpox  should  be  hung  entirely  with  red  curtains,  and  that 
the  doors  and  the  windows  should  be  covered  with  heavy  red 
hangings.  He  claimed  that  this  made  the  disease  run  a  lighter 
course,  with  lessened  mortality,  and  with  very  much  less  dis- 
figurement. Smallpox  was  an  extremely  common  disease  in 
the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  he  probably  had  many  chances 
for  observation.  It  is  interesting  to  realize  that  one  of  the 
most  important  observations  made  at  the  end  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  by  Dr.  Finsen,  the  Danish  investigator  whose 
studies  in  light  and  its  employment  in  therapeutics,  drew  to 
him  the  attention  of  the  world,  and  eventually  the  Nobel  prize 
of  $40,000  for  the  greatest  advance  in  medicine  was,  that  the 
admission  of  only  red  light  to  the  room  of  smallpox  patients 
modified  the  disease  very  materially,  shortened  its  course,  often 
prevented  the  secondary  fever,  and  almost  did  away  completely 
with  the  subsequent  disfigurement. 

It  is  evident  that  these  men  were  searching  and  investigating 
for  themselves,  and  not  following  blindly  in  the  footsteps  of 
any  master.  It  has  often  been  said  that  during  the  Middle  Ages 
it  was  a  heresy  to  depart,  ever  so  little,  from  the  teaching  of 
Galen.  Usually  it  is  customary  to  add  that  the  first  writer  to 
break  away  from  Galen,  effectually,  was  Vesalius,  in  his  De 
Fabrica  Corporis  Humani,  published  toward  the  end  of  the 
second  quarter  of  the  Sixteenth  Century.  It  may  be  said,  in 
passing,  that,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  Vesalius,  though  he  ac- 
complished much  by  original  investigation,  did  not  break  so 
effectually  with  Galen  as  would  have  been  for  the  best  in  his 
own  work,  and,  especially,  for  its  influence  on  his  successors. 
He  certainly  did  not  set  an  example  of  independent  research 


90  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

and  personal  observation,  any  more  fully,  than  did  the  medical 
teachers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  already  mentioned,  and 
some  others,  like  Mondaville  and  Arnold  of  Villanova,  whose 
names  well  deserve  to  be  associated  with  them. 

One  reason  why  it  is  such  a  surprise  to  find  how  thoroughly 
practical  was  the  teaching  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  univer- 
sity medical  schools,  is  because  it  has  somehow  come  to  be  a 
very  general  impression  that  medicine  was  taught  mainly  by 
disputations,  and  by  the  consultation  of  authorities,  and  that 
it  was  always  more  important  to  have  a  passage  of  Galen  to 
support  a  medical  notion,  than  to  have  an  original  observation. 
This  false  impression  is  due  to  the  fact  that  the  writers  of  the 
history  of  medical  education  have,  until  recent  years,  drawn 
largely  on  their  imaginations,  and  have  not  consulted  the  old- 
time  medical  books.  In  spite  of  the  fact  that  printing  was  not 
discovered  for  more  than  two  centuries  later,  there  are  many 
treatises  on  medicine  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  this 
early  time,  and  the  historians  of  medicine  now  have  the  op- 
portunity, and  are  taking  the  trouble,  to  read  them  with  a  con- 
sequent alteration  of  old-time  views,  as  to  the  lack  of  encour- 
agement for  original  observation,  in  the  later  Middle  Ages. 
These  old  tomes  are  not  easy  reading,  but  nothing  daunts  a 
German  investigator  bound  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  his  sub- 
ject, and  such  men  as  Pagel  and  Puschmann  have  done  much 
to  rediscover  for  us  medieval  medicine.  The  French  medical 
historians  have  not  been  behind  their  German  colleagues  and 
magnificent  work  has  been  accomplished,  especially  by  the  re- 
publication  of  old  texts.  William  of  Salicet's  surgery  was  re- 
published  by  Pifteau  at  Toulouse  in  1898.  Mondaville's  Sur- 
gery was  republished  under  the  auspices  of  the  Society  for  the 
Publication  of  old  French  Texts  in  1897  and  1898.  These  re- 
publications  have  made  the  works  of  the  old-time  surgeons 
readily  available  for  study  by  all  interested  in  our  great  pre- 
decessors in  medicine,  all  over  the  world.  Before  this,  it  has 
always  been  necessary  to  get  to  some  of  the  libraries  in  which 
the  old  texts  were  preserved,  and  this,  of  course,  made  it  ex- 
tremely difficult  for  the  ordinary  teacher  of  the  history  of  medi- 
cine to  know  anything  about  them.  Besides,  old  texts  are  such 
difficult  reading  that  few,  except  the  most  earnest  of  students, 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  91 

have  patience  for  them,  and  they  are  so  time-taking  as  to  be 
practically  impossible  for  modern,  hurried  students. 

Unfortunately,  writers  of  the  history  of  medicine  filled  up 
this  gap  in  their  knowledge,  only  too  frequently,  either  out  of 
their  imaginations,  or  out  of  their  inadequate  authorities,  with 
the  consequence  of  inveterating  the  old-time  false  impression 
with  regard  to  the  absence  of  anything  of  medical  or  surgical 
interest,  even  in  the  later  Middle  Ages. 

Another  and  much  more  serious  reason  for  the  false  impres- 
sion with  regard  to  the  supposed  blankness  of  the  middle  age  in 
medical  progress,  was  the  notion,  quite  generally  accepted,  and 
even  yet  not  entirely  rejected,  by  many,  that  the  Church  was 
opposed  to  scientific  advance  in  the  centuries  before  the  refor- 
mation so-called,  and  that  even  the  sciences  allied  to  medicine, 
fell  under  her  ban.  For  instance,  there  is  not  a  history  of  medi- 
cine, so  far  as  I  know,  published  in  the  English  language, 
which  does  not  assert  that  Pope  Boniface  VIII. ,  by  a  Bull  pro- 
mulgated at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  forbade  the 
practise  of  dissection.  To  most  people,  it  will,  at  once,  seem  a 
natural  conclusion,  that  if  the  feeling  against  the  study  of  the 
human  body  by  dissection  had  reached  such  a  pass  as  to  call 
forth  a  papal  decree  in  the  matter,  at  the  end  of  the  century,  all 
during  the  previous  hundred  years,  there  must  have  been 
enough  ecclesiastical  hampering  of  anatomical  work  to  prevent 
anything  like  true  progress,  and  to  preclude  the  idea  of  any 
genuinely  progressive  teaching  of  anatomy. 

There  is  not  the  slightest  basis  for  this  bit  of  false  history 
except  an  unfortunate,  it  is  to  be  hoped  not  intentional,  mis- 
apprehension on  the  part  of  historical  writers  as  to  the  mean- 
ing of  a  papal  decree  issued  by  Boniface  VIII.  in  the  year  1300. 
He  forbade,  under  pain  of  excommunication,  the  boiling  of 
bodies  and  their  dismemberment  in  order  that  thus  piecemeal 
they  might  be  transported  to  long  distances  for  burial  purposes. 
It  is  now  well  known  that  the  Bull  was  aimed  at  certain  prac- 
tises which  had  crept  in,  especially  among  the  Crusaders  in  the 
East.  When  a  member  of  the  nobility  fell  a  victim  to  wounds 
or  to  disease,  his  companions  not  infrequently  dismembered  the 
body,  boiled  it  so  as  to  prevent  putrefaction,  or  at  least  delay 
decay,  and  then  transported  it  long  distances  to  his  home,  in  or- 


92  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

der  that  he  might  have  Christian  burial  in  some  favorite  grave- 
yard, and  that  his  friends  might  have  the  consolation  of  know- 
ing where  his  remains  rested.  The  body  of  the  Emperor  Fred- 
erick Barbarosa,  who  died  in  the  East,  is  said  to  have  been 
thus  treated.  Boniface  was  one  of  the  most  broadly  educated 
men  of  his  time,  who  had  been  a  great  professor  of  canon  and 
civil  law  at  Paris  when  younger,  and  realized  the  dangers  in- 
volved in  such  a  proceeding  from  a  sanitary  standpoint,  and  he 
forbade  it,  requiring  that  the  bodies  should  be  buried  where  the 
persons  had  died.  He  evidently  considered  that  the  ancient 
custom  of  consecrating  a  portion  of  earth  for  the  purpose  of 
burial  in  order  that  the  full  Christian  rites  might  be  performed, 
was  quite  sufficient  for  noble  as  for  common  soldier. 

For  this  very  commendable  sanitary  regulation  Boniface  has 
!>een  set  down  by  historians  of  medicine  as  striking  a  death 
blow  at  the  development  of  anatomy  for  the  next  two  centuries. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  anatomy  continued  to  be  studied 
in  the  universities  after  this  Bull  as  it  had  been  before,  and  it 
is  evident  that  never  by  any  misapprehension  as  to  its  meaning 
was  the  practise  of  dissection  lessened.  Curiously  enough 
the  history  of  human  dissection  can  only  be  traced  with  ab- 
solute certainty  from  the  time  immediately  after  this  Bull.  It 
is  during  the  next  twenty-five  years  at  the  University  of  Bo- 
logna, which  was  always  closely  in  touch  with  the  ecclesiastical 
authorities  in  Italy  and  especially  with  the  Pope,  that  the 
foundations  of  dissection,  as  the  most  important  practical  de- 
partment of  medical  teaching,  were  laid  by  Mondino,  whose 
book  on  dissection  continued  to  be  the  text  book  used  in  most 
of  the  medical  schools  for  the  next  two  centuries.  Guy  de 
Chauliac  who  studied  there  during  the  first  half  of  the  Four- 
teenth Century  says  he  saw  many  dissections  made  there.  It 
was  at  Montpellier,  about  the  middle  of  the  century,  when  the 
Popes  were  at  Avignon  not  far  away,  that  Guy  de  Chauliac 
himself  made  attendance  at  dissections  obligatory  for  every 
student,  and  obtained  permission  to  use  the  bodies  of  criminals 
for  dissection  purposes.  At  the  time  Chauliac  occupied  the  post 
of  chamberlain  to  the  Popes.  All  during  the  Fourteenth  and 
Fifteenth  centuries  constant  progress  was  making  in  anatomy, 
especially  in  Italy,  and  some  of  it  was  accomplished  at  Rome 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK.  93 

by  distinguished  teachers  of  anatomy  who  had  been  summoned 
by  the  popes  to  their  capital  in  order  to  add  distinction  to  the 
teaching  staff  at  the  famous  Papal  School  of  Science,  the 
Sapienza,  to  which  were  attached  during  the  next  two  centuries 
many  of  the  distinguished  scientific  professors  of  the  time. 

This  story  with  regard  to  the  papal  prohibition  of  dissection 
has  no  foundation  in  the  history  of  the  times.  It  has  had  not 
a  little  to  do,  however,  with  making  these  times  very  much 
misunderstood  and  one  still  continues  to  see  printed  references 
to  the  misfortune,  which  is  more  usually  called  a  crime,  that 
prevented  the  development  of  a  great  humanitarian  science 
because  of  ecclesiastical  prejudice.  This  story  with  regard  to 
anatomy,  however,  is  not  a  whit  worse  than  that  which  is  told 
of  chemistry  in  almost  the  same  terms.  At  the  beginning  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century  Pope  John  XXII.  is  said  to  have  issued  a 
Bull  forbidding  chemistry  under  pain  of  excommunication, 
which  according  to  some  writers  in  the  matter  is  said  to  have 
included  the  death  penalty.  It  has  been  felt  in  the  same  way 
as  with  regard  to  anatomy,  that  this  was  only  the  culmination  of 
a  feeling  in  ecclesiastical  circles  against  chemistry  which  must 
have  hampered  its  progress  all  during  the  Thirteenth  Century. 

An  examination  of  the  so-called  Bull  with  regard  to  chemis- 
try, it  is  really  only  a  decree,  shows  even  less  reason  for  the 
slander  of  Pope  John  XXII.  than  of  Boniface  VIII.  John  had 
been  scarcely  a  year  on  the  papal  throne  when  he  issued  this 
decree  forbidding  "alchemies"  and  inflicting  a  punishment  upon 
those  who  practised  them.  The  first  sentence  of  the  title  of 
the  document  is :  "Alchemies  are  here  prohibited  and  those  who 
practise  them  or  procure  their  being  done  are  punished."  This 
is  evidently  all  of  the  decree  that  those  who  quoted  it  as  a 
prohibition  of  chemistry  seem  ever  to  have  read.  Under  the 
name  "alchemies,"  Pope  John,  as  is  clear  from  the  rest  of  the 
document,  meant  a  particular  kind  of  much-advertised  chemi- 
cal manipulations.  He  forbade  the  supposed  manufacture  of 
gold  and  silver.  The  first  sentence  of  his  decree  shows  how 
thoroughly  he  recognized  the  falsity  of  the  pretensions  of  the 
alchemists  in  this  matter.  "Poor  themselves/'  he  says,  "the 
alchemists  promise  riches  which  are  not  forthcoming."  He 
then  forbids  them  further  to  impose  upon  the  poor  people 


94  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

whose  confidence  they  abuse  and  whose  good  money  they  take 
to  return  them  only  base-metal  or  none  at  all. 

The  only  punishment  inflicted  for  the  doing  of  these  "alche- 
mies"  on  those  who  might  transgress  the  decree  was  not 
death  or  imprisonment,  but  that  the  pretended  makers  of 
gold  and  silver  should  be  required  to  turn  into  the  public 
treasury  as  much  gold  and  silver  as  had  been  paid  them  for 
their  alchemies,  the  money  thus  paid  in  to  go  to  the  poor.  As 
in  the  case  of  the  Bull  with  regard  to  anatomy,  it  is  very  clear 
that  by  no  possible  misunderstanding  at  the  time  was  the 
development  of  the  science  of  chemistry  hindered  by  this  papal 
document.  Chemistry  had  to  a  certain  extent  been  cultivated 
at  the  University  of  Paris,  mainly  by  ecclesiastics.  Both  Aqui- 
nas and  his  master  Albertus  wrote  treatises  on  chemical  sub- 
jects. Roger  Bacon  devoted  much  time  to  it  as  is  well  known, 
and  for  the  next  three  centuries  the  history  of  chemistry  has 
a  number  of  names  of  men  who  were  not  only  unhampered  by 
the  ecclesiastical  authorities,  but  who  were  themselves  usually 
either  ecclesiastics,  or  high  in  favor  with  the  churchmen  of 
their  time  and  place.  This  is  true  of  Hollandus,  of  Arnold  of 
Villanova,  of  Basil  Valentine,  and  finally  of  the  many  abbots 
and  bishops  to  whom  Paracelsus  in  his  time  acknowledged  his 
obligations  for  aid  in  his  chemical  studies. 

Almost  needless  to  say  it  has  been  impossible,  in  a  brief 
sketch  of  this  kind  limited  to  a  single  chapter,  to  give  anything 
like  an  adequate  idea  of  what  the  enthusiastic  graduate  stu- 
dents and  professors  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  succeeded  in 
accomplishing.  It  is  probably  this  department  of  University 
life,  however,  that  has  been  least  understood,  or  rather  we 
should  say  most  persistently  misunderstood.  The  education 
of  the  time  is  usually  supposed  to  be  eminently  unpractical,  and 
great  advances  in  the  departments  of  knowledge  that  had  im- 
portant bearings  on  human  life  and  its  relations  were  not  there- 
fore thought  possible.  It  is  just  here,  however,  that  sym- 
pathetic interpretation  and  the  pointing  out  of  the  coordination 
of  intellectual  work  often  considered  to  be  quite  distinct  from 
university  influences  were  needed.  It  is  hoped  then  that  this 
short  sketch  will  prove  sufficient  to  call  the  attention  of  modern 
educators  to  a  field  that  has  been  neglected,  or  at  least  has 


POST-GRADUATE  WORK. 


95 


received  very  little  cultivation  compared  to  its  importance,  but 
which  must  be  sedulously  worked,  if  our  generation  is  to  under- 
stand with  any  degree  of  thoroughness  the  spirit  manifested 
and  the  results  attained  by  the  medieval  universities. 


DOUBLE    FLYING   BUTTRESS    (RHEIMS) 


96  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

VI 

THE  BOOK  OF  THE  ARTS  AND  POPULAR 
EDUCATION. 


The  most  important  portion  of  the  history  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  and  beyond  all  doubt  the  most  significant  chapter  in 
the  book  of  its  arts,  is  to  be  found  in  the  great  Gothic  Cathe- 
drals, so  many  of  which  were  erected  at  this  time  and  whose 
greatest  perfection  of  finish  in  design  and  in  detail  came  just 
at  the  beginning  of  this  wonderful  period.  We  are  not  con- 
cerned here  with  the  gradual  development  of  Gothic  out  of 
the  older  Romanesque  architectural  forms,  nor  with  the  Orien- 
tal elements  that  may  have  helped  this  great  evolution.  All 
that  especially  concerns  us  is  the  fact  that  the  generations  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  took  the  Gothic  ideas  in  architecture 
and  applied  them  so  marvelously,  that  thereafter  it  could  be 
felt  that  no  problem  of  structural  work  had  been  left  unsolved 
and  no  feature  of  ornament  or  decoration  left  untried  or  at 
least  unsuggested.  The  great  center  of  Gothic  influence  was 
the  North  of  France,  but  it  spread  from  here  to  every  country 
in  Europe,  and  owing  to  the  intimate  relations  existing  between 
England  and  France  because  of  the  presence  of  the  Normans  in 
both  countries,  developed  almost  as  rapidly  and  with  as  much 
beauty  and  effectiveness  as  in  the  mother  country. 

It  is  in  fact  in  England  just  before  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
that  the  spirit  which  gave  rise  to  the  Cathedrals  can  bt  best 
observed  at  work  and  its  purposes  most  thoroughly  appreciated. 
The  great  Cathedral  at  Lincoln  had  some  of  its  most  im- 
portant features  before  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  and  this  was  doubtless  due  to  the  famous  St.  Hugh 
of  Lincoln,  who  was  a  Frenchman  by  birth  and  whose  ex- 
perience in  Normandy  in  early  life  enabled  him  success- 
fully to  set  about  the  creation  of  a  Gothic  Cathedral  in 
the  country  that  had  become  his  by  adoption.  Hugh  himself 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  97 

was  so  great  of  soul,  so  deeply  interested  in  his  people  and  their 
welfare,  so  ready  to  make  every  sacrifice  for  them  even  to  the 
extent  of  incurring  the  enmity  of  his  King  (even  Froude 
usually  so  unsympathetic  to  medieval  men  and  things  has 
included  him  among  his  Short  Studies  of  Great  Subjects),  that 
one  cannot  help  but  think  that  when  he  devoted  himself  to  the 
erection  of  the  magnificent  Cathedral,  he  realized  very  well 
that  it  would  become  a  center  of  influence,  not  only  religious 
but  eminently  educational,  in  its  effects  upon  the  people  of  his 
diocese.  The  work  was  begun  then  with  a  consciousness  of  the 
results  to  be  attained  and  the  influence  of  the  Cathedral  must 
not  be  looked  upon  as  accidental.  He  must  have  appreciated 
that  the  creating  of  a  work  of  beauty  in  which  the  people  them- 
selves shared,  which  they  looked  on  as  their  own  property,  to 
which  they  came  nearly  every  second  day  during  the  year  for 
religious  services,  would  be  a  telling  book  out  of  which  they 
would  receive  more  education  than  could  come  to  them  in  any 
other  way. 

Of  course  we  cannot  hope  in  a  short  chapter  or  two  to  convey 
any  adequate  impression  of  the  work  that  was  done  in  and  for 
the  Cathedrals,  nor  the  even  more  important  reactionary  in- 
fluence they  had  in  educating  the  people.  Ferguson  says  :* 

"The  subject  of  the  cathedrals,  their  architecture  and  dec- 
oration is,  in  fact,  practicably  inexhaustible.  .  .  .  Priests  and 
laymen  worked  with  masons,  painters,  and  sculptors,  and  all 
were  bent  on  producing  the  best  possible  building,  and  improv- 
ing every  part  and  every  detail,  till  the  amount  of  thought  and 
contrivance  accumulated  in  any  single  structure  is  almost 
incomprehensible.  If  any  one  man  were  to  devote  a  lifetime 
to  the  study  of  one  of  our  great  cathedrals — assuming  it  to 
be  complete  in  all  its  medieval  arrangements — it  is  question- 
able whether  he  would  master  all  its  details,  and  fathom  all 
the  reasonings  and  experiments  which  led  to  the  glorious 
result  before  him.  And  when  we  consider  that  not  in  the  great 
cities  alone,  but  in  every  convent  and  in  every  parish,  thought- 
ful professional  men  were  trying  to  excel  what  had  been  done 
and  was  doing,  by  their  predecessors  and  their  fellows,  we  shall 

*  Ferguson — History  of  Architecture.     N.  Y.,  Dodd,  Mead  &  Co. 


98  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

understand  what  an  amount  of  thought  is  built  into  the  walls 
of  our  churches,  castles,  colleges,  and  dwelling  houses.  If  any 
one  thinks  he  can  master  and  reproduce  all  this,  he  can  hardly 
fail  to  be  mistaken.  My  own  impression  is  that  not  one  tenth 
part  of  it  has  been  reproduced  in  all  the  works  written  on  the 
subject  up  to  this  day,  and  much  of  it  is  probably  lost  and  never 
again  to  be  recovered  for  the  instruction  and  delight  of  future 
ages." 

This  profound  significance  and  charming  quality  of  the 
cathedrals  is  usually  unrecognized  by  those  who  see  them  only 
once  or  twice,  and  who,  though  they  are  very  much  interested  in 
them  for  the  moment,  have  no  idea  of  the  wealth  of  artistic 
suggestion  and  of  thoughtful  design  so  solicitously  yet  happily 
put  into  them  by  their  builders.  People  who  have  seen  them 
many  times,  however,  who  have  lived  in  close  touch  with  them, 
who  have  been  away  from  them  for  a  time  and  have  come  back 
to  them,  find  the  wondrous  charm  that  is  in  these  buildings.  Ar- 
chitects and  workmen  put  their  very  souls  into  them  and  they 
will  always  be  of  interest.  It  is  for  this  reason,  that  the  casual 
visitor  at  all  times  and  in  all  moods  finds  them  ever  a  source  of 
constantly  renewed  pleasure,  no  matter  how  many  times  they 
may  be  seen. 

Elizabeth  Robbins  Pennell  has  expressed  this  power  of 
Cathedrals  to  please  at  all  times,  even  after  they  have  been  of- 
ten seen  and  are  very  well  known,  in  a  recent  number  of  the 
Century,  in  describing  the  great  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame, 
"Often  as  I  have  seen  Notre  Dame,"  she  says,  "the  marvel  of 
it  never  grows  less.  I  go  to  Paris  with  no  thought  of  time  for 
it,  busy  about  many  other  things  and  then  on  my  way  over  one 
of  the  bridges  across  the  river  perhaps,  I  see  it  again  on  its 
island,  the  beautiful  towers  high  above  the  houses  and 
palaces  and  the  view  now  so  familiar  strikes  me  afresh  with  all 
the  wonder  of  my  first  impression." 

This  is  we  think  the  experience  of  everyone  who  has  the 
opportunity  to  see  much  of  Notre  Dame.  The  present  writer 
during  the  course  of  his  medical  studies  spent  many  months 
in  daily  view  of  the  Cathedral  and  did  a  good  deal  of  work 
at  the  old  Morgue,  situated  behind  the  Cathedral.  Even  at 
the  end  of  his  stay  he  was  constantly  finding  new  beauties  in 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  99 

the  grand  old  structure  and  learning  to  appreciate  it  more  and 
more  as  the  changing  seasons  of  a  Paris  fall  and  winter  and 
spring,  threw  varying  lights  and  shadows  over  it.  It  was 
like  a  work  of  nature,  never  growing  old,  but  constantly  dis- 
playing some  new  phase  of  beauty  to  the  passers-by.  Mrs. 
Pennell  resents  only  the  restorations  that  have  been  made. 
Generations  down  even  to  our  time  have  considered  that  they 
could  rebuild  as  beautifully  as  the  Thirteenth  Century  con- 
structors; some  of  them  even  have  thought  that  they  could 
do  better,  doubtless,  yet  their  work  has  in  the  opinion  of  good 
critics  served  only  to  spoil  or  at  least  to  detract  from  the  finer 
beauty  of  the  original  plan.  No  wonder  that  R.  M.  Stevenson, 
who  knew  and  loved  the  old  Cathedral  so  well,  said :  "Notre 
Dame  is  the  only  un-Greek  thing  that  unites  majesty,  elegance, 
and  awfulness."  Inasmuch  as  it  does  so  it  is  a  typical  product 
of  this  wonderful  Thirteenth  Century,  the  only  serious  rival 
the  Greeks  have  ever  had.  But  of  course  it  does  not  stand 
alone.  There  are  other  Cathedrals  built  at  the  same  time  at 
least  as  handsome  and  as  full  of  suggestions.  Indeed  in  the 
opinion  of  many  critics  it  is  inferior  in  certain  respects  to  some 
three  or  four  of  the  greatest  Gothic  Cathedrals. 

It  cannot  be  possible  that  these  generations  builded  so  much 
better  than  they  knew,  that  it  is  only  by  a  sort  of  happy 
accident  that  their  edifices  still  continue  to  be  the  subject  of 
such  profound  admiration,  and  such  endless  sources  of 
pleasure  after  seven  centuries  of  experience.  If  so  we  would 
certainly  be  glad  to  have  some  such  happy  accident  occur  in 
our  generation,  for  we  are  building  nothing  at  the  present  time 
with  regard  to  which  we  have  any  such  high  hopes.  Of 
course  the  generations  of  Cathedral  builders  knew  and  appre- 
ciated their  own  work.  The  triumph  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury is  therefore  all  the  more  marked  and  must  be  considered 
as  directly  due  to  the  environment  and  the  education  of  its 
people.  We  have  then  in  the  study  of  their  Cathedrals  the 
keynote  for  the  modern  appreciation  of  the  character  and  the 
development  of  their  builders. 

It  will  be  readily  understood,  how  inevitably  fragmentary 
must  be  our  consideration  of  the  Cathedrals,  yet  there  is  the 
consolation  that  they  are  the  best  known  feature  of  Thirteenth 


100  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Century  achievement  and  that  consequently  all  that  will  be 
necessary  will  be  to  point  out  the  significance  of  their  con- 
struction as  the  basis  of  the  great  movement  of  education  and 
uplift  in  the  century.  Perhaps  first  a  word  is  needed  with 
regard  to  the  varieties  of  Gothic  in  the  different  countries  of 
Europe  and  what  they  meant  in  the  period. 

Probably,  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  history  of 
Gothic  architecture,  at  this  period,  is  to  be  found  in  the  cir- 
cumstance that,  while  all  of  the  countries  erected  Gothic 
structures  along  the  general  lines  which  had  been  laid  down 
by  its  great  inventors  in  the  North  and  Center  of  France,  none 
of  the  architects  and  builders  of  the  century,  in  other  coun- 
tries, slavishly  followed  the  French  models.  English  Gothic 
is  quite  distinct  from  its  French  ancestor,  and  while  it  has 
defects  it  has  beauties,  that  are  all  its  own,  and  a  simplicity 
and  grandeur,  well  suited  to  the  more  rugged  character  of  the 
people  among  whom  it  developed.  Italian  Gothic  has  less 
merits,  perhaps,  than  any  of  the  other  forms  of  the  art  that  de- 
veloped in  the  different  nations.  In  Italy,  with  its  bright  sun- 
light, there  was  less  crying  need  for  the  window  space,  for 
the  provision  of  which,  in  the  darker  northern  countries, 
Gothic  was  invented,  but,  even  here  the  possibilities  of  decora- 
ted architecture  along  certain  lines  were  exhausted  more  fully 
than  anywhere  else,  as  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
esthetic  spirit  of  the  Italians.  German  Gothic  has  less  refine- 
ment than  any  of  the  other  national  forms,  yet  it  is  not  lack- 
ing in  a  certain  straightforward  strength  and  simplicity  of 
appearance,  which  recommends  it.  The  Germans  often  violated 
the  French  canons  of  architecture,  yet  did  not  spoil  the  ulti- 
mate effect.  St.  Stephen's  in  Vienna  has  many  defects,  yet 
as  a  good  architectural  authority  has  declared  it  is  the  work 
of  a  poet,  and  looks  it. 

A  recent  paragraph  with  regard  to  Spanish  Gothic  in  an 
article  on  Spain,  by  Havelock  Ellis,  illustrates  the  national 
qualities  of  this  style  very  well.  As  much  less  is  generally 
known  about  the  special  development  of  Gothic  architecture 
in  the  Spanish  peninsula,  it  has  seemed  worth  while  to  quote 
it  at  some  length : 

"Moreover,  there  is  no  type  of  architecture  which  so  admira- 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  101 

bly  embodies  the  romantic  spirit  as  Spanish  Gothic.  Such 
a  statement  implies  no  heresy  against  the  supremacy  of 
French  Gothic.  But  the  very  qualities  of  harmony  and  bal- 
ance of  finely  tempered  reason,  which  make  French  Gothic 
so  exquisitely  satisfying,  softened  the  combination  of  myster- 
iously grandiose  splendor  with  detailed  realism,  in  which  lies 
the  essence  of  Gothic  as  the  manifestation  of  the  romantic 
spirit.  Spanish  Gothic  at  once  by  its  massiveness  and  extrava- 
gance and  by  its  realistic  naturalness,  far  more  potently  em- 
bodies the  spirit  of  medieval  life.  It  is  less  esthetically 
beautiful  but  it  is  more  romantic.  In  Leon  Cathedral,  Spain 
possesses  one  of  the  very  noblest  and  purest  examples  of 
French  Gothic — a  church  which  may  almost  be  said  to  be  the 
supreme  type  of  the  Gothic  ideal,  of  a  delicate  house  of  glass 
finely  poised  between  buttresses ;  but  there  is  nothing  Spanish 
about  it.  For  the  typical  Gothic  of  Spain  we  must  go  to 
Toledo  and  Burgos,  to  Tarragona  and  Barcelona.  Here  we 
find  the  elements  of  stupendous  size,  of  mysterious  gloom,  of 
grotesque  and  yet  realistic  energy,  which  are  the  dominant 
characters,  alike  of  Spanish  architecture  and  of  medieval 
romance." 

Those  who  think  that  the  Gothic  architecture  came  to  a  per- 
fection all  its  own  by  a  sort  of  wonderful  manifestation  of 
genius  in  a  single  generation,  and  then  stayed  there,  are  sadly 
mistaken.  There  was  a  constant  development  to  be  noted  all 
during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  This  development  was  always 
in  the  line  of  true  improvement,  while  just  after  the  century 
closed  degeneration  began,  decoration  became  too  important 
a  consideration,  parts  were  over-loaded  with  ornament,  and 
the  decadence  of  taste  in  Gothic  architecture  cannot  escape 
the  eye  even  of  the  most  untutored.  All  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century  the  tendency  was  always  to  greater  lightness  and 
elegance.  One  is  apt  to  think  of  these  immense  structures  as 
manifestations  of  the  power  of  man  to  overcome  great  engi- 
neering difficulties  and  to  solve  immense  structural  problems, 
rather  than  as  representing  opportunities  for  the  expression 
of  what  was  most  beautiful  and  poetic  in  the  intellectual  as- 
pirations of  the  generations.  But  this  is  what  they  were,  and 
their  architects  were  poets,  for  in  the  best  sense  of  the  etymol- 


102  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ogy  of  the  word  they  were  creators.  That  their  raw  mater- 
ial was  stone  and  mortar  rather  than  words  was  only  an  acci- 
dent of  their  environment.  Each  of  the  architects  succeeded 
in  expressing  himself  with  wonderful  individuality  in  his  own 
work  in  each  Cathedral. 

The  improvements  introduced  by  the  Thirteenth  Century 
people  into  the  architecture  that  came  to  them,  were  all  of  a 
very  practical  kind,  and  were  never  suggested  for  the  sake  of 
merely  adding  to  opportunities  for  ornamentation.  In  this 
matter,  skillful  combinations  of  line  and  form  were  thought 
out  and  executed  with  wonderful  success.  At  the  beginning 
of  the  century,  delicate  shafts  of  marble,  highly  polished,  were 
employed  rather  freely,  but  as  these  seldom  carried  weight, 
and  were  mainly  ornamental  in  character,  they  were  gradually 
eliminated,  yet,  without  sacrificing  any  of  the  beauty  of  struc- 
ture since  combinations  of  light  and  shade  were  secured  by  the 
composition  of  various  forms,  and  the  use  of  delicately 
rounded  mouldings  alternated  with  hollo\vs,  so  as  to  produce 
forcible  effects  in  high  light  and  deep  shadow.  In  a  word, 
these  architects  and  builders,  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  set 
themselves  the  problem  of  building  effectively,  making  every 
portion  count  in  the  building  itself,  and  yet,  securing  orna- 
mental effects  out  of  actual  structure  such  as  no  other  set  of 
architects  have  ever  been  able  to  surpass,  and,  probably,  only 
the  Greek  architects  of  the  Periclean  period  ever  equaled. 
Needless  to  say,  this  is  the  very  acme  of  success  in  architectu- 
ral work,  and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  the  generations  of  the 
after  time  have  all  gone  back  so  lovingly  to  study  the  work  of 
this  period. 

It  might  be  thought,  that  while  Gothic  architecture  was  a 
great  invention  in  its  time  and  extremely  suitable  for  ecclesi- 
astical or  even  educational  edifices  of  various  kinds,  its  time 
of  usefulness  has  passed  and  that  men's  widening  ex- 
perience in  structural  work,  ever  since,  has  carried 
him  far  away  from  it.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  most  of 
cur  ecclesiastical  buildings  are  still  built  on  purely 
Gothic  lines,  and  a  definite  effort  is  made,  as  a  rule, 
to  have  the  completed  religious  edifice  combine  a  number 
of  the  best  features  of  Thirteenth  Century  Gothic.  With  what 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  103 

success  this  has  been  accomplished  can  best  be  appreciated  from 
the  fact,  that  none  of  the  modern  structures  attract  anything 
like  the  attention  of  the  old,  and  the  Cathedrals  of  this  early 
time  still  continue  to  be  the  best  asset  of  the  towns  in  which 
they  are  situated,  because  of  the  number  of  visitors  they 
attract.  Far  from  considering  Gothic  architecture  outlived, 
architects  still  apply  themselves  to  it  with  devotion  because  of 
the  practical  suggestions  which  it  contains,  and  there  are  those 
of  wide  experience,  who  still  continue  to  think  it  the  most  won- 
derful example  of  architectural  development  that  has  ever 
come,  and  even  do  not  hesitate  to  foretell  a  great  future  for  it, 
Reinach,  in  his  Story  of  Art  Throughout  the  Ages,*  has 
been  so  enthusiastic  in  this  matter  that  a  paragraph  of  his 
opinion  must  find  a  place  here.  Reinach,  it  may  be  said,  is  an 
excellent  authority,  a  member  of  the  Institute  of  France,  who 
has  made  special  studies  in  comparative  architecture,  and  has 
written  works  that  carry  more  weight  than  almost  any  others 
of  our  generation : 

"If  the  aim  of  architecture,  considered  as  an  art,  should  be 
to  free  itself  as  much  as  possible  from  subjection  to  its  mater- 
ials, it  may  be  said  that  no  buildings  have  more  successfully 
realized  this  ideal  than  the  Gothic  churches.  And  there  is 
more  to  be  said  in  this  connection.  Its  light  and  airy  system  of 
construction,  the  freedom  and  slenderness  of  its  supporting 
skeleton,  afford,  as  it  were,  a  presage  of  an  art  that  began  to 
develop  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  that  of  metallic  architect- 
ure. With  the  help  of  metal,  and  of  cement  reinforced  by 
metal  bars,  the  moderns  might  equal  the  most  daring  feats  of 
the  Gothic  architects.  It  would  even  be  easy  for  them  to  sur- 
pass them,  without  endangering  the  solidity  of  the  structure, 
as  did  the  audacities  of  Gothic  art.  In  the  conflicts  that  ob- 
tain between  the  two  elements  of  construction,  solidity  and 
open  space,  everything  seems  to  show  that  the  principle  of  free 
spaces  will  prevail,  that  the  palaces  and  houses  of  the  future 
will  be  flooded  with  air  and  light,  that  the  formula  popu- 
larized by  Gothic  architecture  has  a  great  future  before  it, 
and  that  following  the  revival  of  the  Graeco-Roman  style  from 

*Scribners,  New  York,  1905. 


104  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  Sixteenth  Century,  to  our  own  day,  we  shall  see  a  yet  more 
enduring  renaissance  of  the  Gothic  style  applied  to  novel 
materials." 

It  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  think  that  the  Gothic 
Cathedrals  were  impressive  only  because  of  their  grandeur 
and  immense  size.  It  would  be  still  more  a  mistake  to  con- 
sider them  only  as  examples  of  a  great  development  in  archi- 
tecture. They  are  much  more  than  this;  they  are  the  com- 
pendious expression  of  the  art  impulses  of  a  glorious  cen- 
tury. Every  single  detail  of  the  Gothic  Cathedrals  is  not 
only  worthy  of  study  but  deserving  of  admiration,  if 
not  for  itself,  then  always  for  the  inadequate  means 
by  which  it  was  secured,  and  most  of  these  details 
have  been  found  worthy  of  imitation  by  subsequent  gen- 
erations. It  is  only  by  considering  the  separate  details 
of  the  art  work  of  these  Cathedrals  that  the  fu!l  lesson 
of  what  these  wonderful  people  accomplished  can  be  learned. 
There  have  been  many  centuries  since,  in  which  they  would  be 
entirelv  unappreciated.  Fortunately,  our  own  time  has  come 
back  recognition  of  the  greatness  of  the  art  impulse  that 

was  at  work,  perfecting  even  what  might  be  considered  trivial 
portions  of  the  cathedrals,  and  the  brightest  hope  for  the  future 
of  our  own  accomplishment  is  founded  on  this  belated  appre- 
ciation of  old-time  work. 

It  has  uccn  said  that  the  medieval  workman  was  a  lively 
symbol  of  the  Creator  Himself,  in  the  way  in  which  he  did 
his  work.  It  mattered  not  how  obscure  the  portion  of  the 
cathedral  at  which  he  was  set,  he  decorated  it  as  beautifully  as 
he  knew  how,  without  a  thought  that  his  work  would  be 
appreciated  only  by  the  very  few  that  might  see  it.  Trivial 
details  were  finished  with  the  perfection  of  important  parts. 
Microscopic  studies  in  recent  years  have  revealed  beautiful 
designs  on  pollen  grains  and  diatoms  which  are  far  beneath 
the  possibilities  of  human  vision,  and  have  only  been  discov- 
ered by  lens  combinations  of  very  high  powers  of  the  com- 
pound microscope.  Always  these  beauties  have  been  there 
though  hidden  away  from  any  eye.  It  was  as  if  the 
Creator's  hand  could  not  touch  anything  without  leaving  it 
beautiful  as  well  as  useful.  To  as  great  extent  as  it  is  possible 


CATHEDRAL     (AMIENS) 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  105 

perhaps  for  man  to  secure  such  a  desideratum,  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  workman  succeeded  in  this  same  purpose.  It 
is  for  this  reason  more  than  even  for  the  magnificent  grand 
eur  of  the  design  and  the  skilful  execution  with  inadequate 
means,  that  makes  the  Gothic  Cathedral  such  a  source  of  ad- 
miration and  wonder. 

To  take  first  the  example  of  sculpture.  It  is  usually  con- 
sidered that  the  Thirteenth  Century  represented  a  time  entirely 
too  early  in  the  history  of  plastic  art  for  there  to  have  been 
any  fine  examples  of  the  sculptor's  chisel  left  us  from  it.  Any 
such  impression,  however,  will  soon  be  corrected  if  one  but 
examines  carefully  the  specimens  of  this  form  of  art  in  cer- 
tain Cathedrals.  As  we  have  said,  probably  no  more  charm- 
ingly dignified  presentation  of  the  human  form  divine  in  stone 
has  ever  been  made  than  the  figure  of  Christ  above  the  main 
door  of  the  cathedral  of  Amiens,  which  the  Amiennois  so  lov- 
ingly call  their  "beautfful  God."  There  are  some  other 
examples  of  statuary  in  the  same  cathedral  that  are  wonderful 
specimens  of  the  sculptor's  art,  lending  itself  for  decorative 
purposes  to  architecture.  This  is  true  for  a  number  of  the 
Cathedrals.  The  statues  in  themselves  are  not  so  beautiful, 
but  as  portions  of  a  definite  piece  of  structural  work  such  as 
a  doorway  or  a  facade,  they  are  wonderful  models  of  how  all 
the  different  arts  became  subservient  to  the  general  effect  to 
be  produced.  It  was  at  Rheims,  however,  that  sculpture 
reached  its  acme  of  accomplishment,  and  architects  have  been 
always  unstinted  in  their  praise  of  this  feature  of  what  may  be 
called  the  Capitol  church  of  France. 

Those  who  have  any  doubts  as  to  the  place  of  Gothic  art  it- 
self in  art  history  and  who  need  an  authority  always  to  bol- 
ster up  the  opinion  that  they  may  hold,  will  find  ample  support 
in  the  enthusiastic  opinion  of  an  authority  whom  we  have 
quoted  already.  The  most  interesting  and  significant  feature 
of  his  ardent  expression  of  enthusiasm  is  his  comparison  of 
Romanesque  with  Gothic  art  in  this  respect.  The 
amount  of  ground  covered  from  one  artistic  mode  to  the 
other  is  greater  than  any  other  advance  in  art  that  has  ever 
been  made.  After  all,  the  real  value  of  the  work  of  the  period 
must  be  judged,  rather  by  the  amount  of  progress  that  has 


106  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

been  made  than  by  the  stage  of  advance  actually  reached, 
since  it  is  development  rather  than  accomplishment  that  counts 
in  the  evolution  of  the  race.  On  the  other  hand  it  will 
be  found  that  Reinach's  opinion  of  the  actual  attainments  of 
Gothic  art  are  far  beyond  anything  that  used  to  be  thought 
on  the  subject  a  half  century  ago,  and  much  higher  than  any 
but  a  few  of  the  modern  art  critics  hold  in  the  matter.  He  says : 

"In  contrast  to  this  Romanesque  art,  as  yet  in  bondage  to 
convention,  ignorant  or  disdainful  of  nature,  the  mature 
Gothic  art  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  appeared  as  a  brilliant 
revival  or  realism.  The  great  sculptors  who  adorned  the 
Cathedrals  of  Paris,  Amiens,  Rheims,  and  Chartres  with  their 
works,  were  realists  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word.  They 
sought  in  Nature  not  only  their  knowledge  of  human  forms, 
and  of  the  draperies  that  cover  them,  but  also  that  of  the  prin- 
ciples of  decoration.  Save  in  the  gargoyles  of  cathedrals  and 
in  certain  minor  sculptures,  we  no  longer  find  in  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  those  unreal  figures  of  animals,  nor  those 
ornaments,  complicated  as  nightmares,  which  load  the  capi- 
tals of  Romanesque  churches ;  the  flora  of  the  country,  studied 
with  loving  attention,  is  the  sole,  or  almost  the  sole 
source  from  which  decorators  take  their  motives.  It  is  in  this 
charming  profusion  of  flowers  and  foliage  that  the  genius 
of  Gothic  architecture  is  most  freely  displayed.  One  of  the 
most  admirable  of  its  creations  is  the  famous  Capital  of  the 
Vintage  in  Notre  Dame  at  Rheims,  carved  about  the  year  1250. 
Since  the  first  century  of  the  Roman  Empire  art  had  never 
imitated  Nature  so  perfectly,  nor  has  it  ever  since  done  so  with 
a  like  grace  and  sentiment." 

Reinach  defends  Gothic  Art  from  another  and  more  serious 
objection  which  is  constantly  urged  against  it  by  those  who 
know  only  certain  examples  of  it,  but  have  not  had  the  advan- 
tage of  the  wide  study  of  the  whole  field  of  artistic  endeavor 
in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  which  this  distinguished  member  of 
the  Institute  of  France  has  succeeded  in  obtaining.  It  is  cur- 
ious what  unfounded  opinions  have  come  to  be  prevalent  in 
art  circles  because,  only  too  often,  writers  with  regard  to  the 
Cathedrals  have  spent  their  time  mainly  in  the  large  cities, 
or  along  the  principal  arteries  of  travel,  and  have  not  realized 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  107 

that  some  of  the  smaller  towns  contained  work  better 
fitted  to  illustrate  Gothic  Art  principles  than  those  on 
which  they  depended  for  their  information.  If  only 
particular  phases  of  the  art  of  any  one  time,  no  mat- 
ter how  important,  were  to  be  considered  in  forming  a 
judgment  of  it,  that  judgment  would  almost  surely  bo 
unfavorable  in  many  ways  because  of  the  lack  of  comple- 
teness of  view.  This  is  what  has  happened  unfortunately  with 
regard  to  Gothic  art,  but  a  better  spirit  is  coming  in  this  mat- 
ter, with  the  more  careful  study  of  periods  of  art  and  the  re- 
turn of  reverence  for  the  grand  old  Middle  Ages. 

Reinach  says:  "There  are  certain  prejudices  against  this 
admirable,  though  incomplete,  art  which  it  is  difficult  to  com- 
bat. It  is  often  said,  for  instance,  that  all  Gothic  figures  are 
stiff  and  emaciated.  To  convince  ourselves  of  the  contrary  we 
need  only  study  the  marvelous  sculpture  of  the  meeting  be- 
tween Abraham  and  Melchisedech,  in  Rheims  Cathedral;  or 
again  in  the  same  Cathedral,  the  Visitation,  the  seated  Prophet, 
and  the  standing  Angel,  or  the  exquisite  Magdalen  of  Bor- 
deaux Cathedral.  What  can  we  see  in  these  that  is  stiff,  sickly, 
and  puny?  The  art  that  has  most  affinity  with  perfect  Gothic 
is  neither  Romanesque  nor  Byzantine,  but  the  Greek  art  of 
from  500  to  450  B.  C.  By  a  strange  coincidence,  the  Gothic 
artists  even  reproduce  the  somewhat  stereotyped  smile  of  their 
forerunners."  Usually  it  is  said  that  the  Renaissance  brought 
the  supreme  qualities  of  Greek  plastic  art  back  to  life,  but 
here  is  a  thoroughly  competent  critic  who  finds  them  exhibited 
long  before  the  Fifteenth  Century,  as  a  manifestation  of  what 
the  self-sufficient  generations  of  the  Renaissance  would  have 
called  Gothic,  meaning  thereby,  barbarous  art. 

What  has  been  said  of  sculpture,  however,  can  be  repeated 
with  even  more  force  perhaps  with  regard  to  every  detail  of 
construction  and  decoration.  Builders  and  architects  did  make 
mistakes  at  times,  but,  even  their  mistakes  always  reveal  an 
artist's  soul  struggling  for  expression  through  inadequate 
media.  Many  things  had  to  be  done  experimentally,  most 
things  were  being  done  for  the  first  time.  Everything  had  an 
originality  of  its  own  that  made  its  execution  something  more 
than  merely  a  secure  accomplishment  after  previous  careful 


108  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tests.  In  spite  of  this  state  of  affairs,  which  might  be  expected 
sadly  to  interfere  with  artistic  execution,  the  Cathedrals,  in  the 
main,  are  full  of  admirable  details  not  only  worthy  of  imitation, 
but  that  our  designers  are  actually  imitating  or  at  least  find- 
ing eminently  suggestive  at  the  present  time. 

To  begin  with  a  well  known  example  of  decorative  effect 
which  is  found  in  the  earliest  of  the  English  Cathedrals,  that 
of  Lincoln.  The  nave  and  choir  of  this  was  finished  just  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  choir  is  so 
beautiful  in  its  conception,  so  wonderful  in  its  construction, 
so  charming  in  its  finish,  so  satisfactory  in  all  its  detail, 
though  there  is  very  little  of  what  would  be  called  striving 
after  effect  in  it,  that  it  is  still  called  the  Angel  Choir. 

The  name  was  originally  given  it  because  it  was  considered 
to  be  so  beautiful  even  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  that  vis- 
itors could  scarcely  believe  that  it  was  constructed  by  human 
hands  and  so  the  legend  became  current  that  it  was  the  work 
of  angels.  If  the  critics  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  who  had 
the  opportunity  to  see  work  of  nearly  the  same  kind  being  con- 
structed in  many  parts  of  England,  judged  thus  highly  of  it, 
it  is  not  surprising  that  modern  visitors  should  be  unstinted 
in  their  praise.  It  is  interesting  to  note  as  representative  of 
the  feeling  of  a  cultured  modern  scientific  mind  that  Dr.  Osier 
said  not  long  ago,  in  one  of  his  medical  addresses,  that  prob- 
ably nothing  more  beautiful  had  ever  come  from  the  hands  of 
man  than  this  Angel  Choir  at  Lincoln.  As  to  who  were  the 
designers,  who  conceived  it,  or  the  workmen  who  executed 
it,  we  have  no  records.  It  is  not  unlikely  that  the  famous 
Hugh  of  Lincoln,  the  great  Bishop  to  whom  the  Calhedral 
owes  its  foundation  and  much  of  its  splendor,  was  responsible 
to  no  little  extent  for  this  beautiful  feature  of  his  Cathedral 
church.  The  workmen  who  made  it  were  artist-artisans  in  the 
best  sense  of  the  word  and  it  is  not  surprising  that  other  beauti- 
ful archtectural  features  should  have  flourished  in  a  country 
where  such  workmen  could  be  found. 

Almost  as  impressive  as  the  Angel  Choir  was  the  stained 
glass  work  at  Lincoln.  The  rose  windows  are  among  the 
most  beautiful  ever  made  and  one  of  them  is  indeed  considered 
a  gem  of  its  kind.  The  beautiful  colors  and  wonderful  effec- 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  109 

tiveness  of  the  stained  glass  of  these  old  time  Cathedrals  can- 
not be  appreciated  unless  the  windows  themselves  are  actually 
seen.  At  Lincoln  there  is  a  very  impressive  contrast  that  one 
can  scarcely  help  calling  to  attention  and  that  has  been  very 
frequently  the  subject  of  comment  by  visitors.  During  the 
Parliamentary  time,  unfortunately,  the  stained  glass  at  Lincoln 
fell  under  the  ban  of  the  Puritans.  The  lower  windows  were 
almost  completely  destroyed  by  the  soldiers  of  Cromwell's 
army.  Only  the  rose  windows  owing  to  their  height  were 
preserved  from  the  destroyer.  There  was  an  old  sexton  at  the 
Cathedral,  however,  for  whom  the  stained  glass  had  become 
as  the  apple  of  his  eye.  As  boy  and  man  he  had  lived  in  its 
beautiful  colors  as  they  broke  the  light  of  the  rising  and  the 
setting  sun  and  they  were  too  precious  to  be  neglectecl  even 
when  lying  upon  the  pavement  of  the  Cathedral  in  fragments. 
He  gathered  the  shattered  pieces  into  bags  and  hid  them  away 
in  a  dark  corner  of  the  crypt,  saving  them  at  least  from  the 
desecration  of  being  trampled  to  dust. 

Long  afterwards,  indeed  almost  in  our  own  time,  they  were 
found  here  and  were  seen  to  be  so  beautiful  that  regardless 
of  the  fact  that  they  could  not  be  fitted  together  in  anything 
like  their  former  places,  they  were  pieced  into  windows  and 
made  to  serve  their  original  purpose  once  more?  It  so  hap- 
pened that  new  stained  glass  windows  for  the  Cathedral  of 
Lincoln  were  ordered  during  the  Nineteenth  Century.  These 
were  made  at  an  unfortunate  time  in  stained  glass  making  and 
are  as  nearly  absolutely  unattractive,  to  say  nothing  worse,  as  it 
is  possible  to  make  stained  glass.  The  contrast  with  the  an- 
tique windows,  fragmentary  as  they  are,  made  up  of  the  broken 
pieces  of  Thirteenth  Century  glass  is  most  striking.  The  old 
time  colors  are  so  rich  that  when  the  sun  shines  directly  on 
them  they  look  like  jewels.  No  one  pays  the  slightest  atten- 
tion, unless  perhaps  the  doubtful  compliment  of  a  smile  be 
given,  to  the  modern  windows  which  were,  however,  very  costly 
and  the  best  that  could  be  obtained  at  that  time. 

More  of  the  stained  glass  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  is 
preserved  at  York  where,  because  of  the  friendship  of  General 
Ireton,  the  town  and  the  Cathedral  were  spared  the  worst 
ravages  of  the  Parliamentarians.  As  a  consequence  York  still 


110  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

possesses  some  of  the  best  of  its  old  time  windows.  It  is  prob- 
able that  there  is  nothing  more  beautiful  or  wonderful  in  its 
effectiveness  than  the  glass  in  the  Five  Sisters  window  at 
York.  This  is  only  an  ordinary  lancet  window  of  five  com- 
partments— hence  the  name — in  the  west  front  of  the  Cathe- 
dral. There  are  no  figures  on  the  window,  it  is  only  a  mass 
of  beautiful  greyish  green  tints  which  marvelously  subdues 
the  western  setting  sun  at  the  vesper  hour  and  produces  the 
most  beautiful  effects  in  the  interior  of  the  Cathedral.  Here  if 
anywhere  one  can  realize  the  meaning  of  the  expression  dim 
religious  light.  In  recent  years,  however,  it  has  become  the 
custom  for  so  many  people  to  rave  over  the  Five  Sisters 
that  we  are  spared  the  necessity  of  more  than  mentioning  it. 
Its  tints  far  from  being  injured  by  time  have  probably  been 
enriched.  There  can  be  no  doubt  at  all,  however,  of  the  artis- 
tic tastes  and  esthetic  genius  of  the  man  who  designed  it. 
The  other  windows  of  the  Cathedral  were  not  unworthy  of  this 
truimph  of  art.  How  truly  the  Cathedral  was  a  Technical 
School  can  be  appreciated  from  the  fact  that  it  was  able  to 
inspire  such  workmen  to  produce  these  wondrous  effects. 

Experts  in  stained  glass  work  have  often  called  attention 
to  the  fact  that  the  windows  constructed  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century  were  not  only  of  greater  artistic  value  but  were  also 
more  solidly  put  together.  Many  of  the  windows  made  in  the 
century  still  maintain  their  places,  in  spite  of  the  passage 
of  time,  though  later  windows  are  sometimes  dropping  to 
pieces.  It  might  be  thought  that  this  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
later  stained  glass  workers  were  more  delicate  in  the  con- 
struction of  their  windows  in  order  not  to  injure  the  effect  of 
the  stained  glass.  To  some  extent  this  is  true,  but  the  stained 
glass  workers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  preserve  the  effective- 
ness of  their  artistic  pictures  in  glass,  though  making  the  frame 
work  very  substantial.  This  is  only  another  example  of  their 
ability  to  combine  the  useful  with  the  beautiful  so  character- 
istic of  the  century,  stamping  practically  every  phase  of  its 
accomplishment  and  making  their  work  more  admirable  be- 
cause its  usefulness  does  not  suffer  on  account  of  any  strained 
efforts  after  supposed  beauties. 

Though  it  is  somewhat  out  of  place  here  we  cannot  refrain 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  Ill 

from  pointing  out  the  educational  value  of  this  stained  glass 
work. 

Some  of  the  stories  on  these  windows  gave  details  of  many 
passages  from  the  Bible,  that  must  have  impressed  them  upon 
the  people  much  more  than  any  sermon  or  reading  ot  the  text 
could  possibly  have  accomplished.  They  were  literally  ser- 
mons in  glass  that  he  who  walked  by  had  to  read  whether  he 
would  or  not.  When  we  remember  that  the  common  people 
in  the  Middle  Ages  had  no  papers  to  distract  them,  and  no 
books  to  turn  to  for  information,  such  illustrations  as  were 
provided  by  the  stained  glass  windows,  by  the  painting  and 
the  statuary  decorations  of  the  Cathedrals,  must  have  been 
studied  with  fondest  devotion  even  apart  from  religious  senti- 
ment and  out  of  mere  inquisitiveness.  The  famous  "prodigal" 
window  at  Chartres  is  a  good  example  of  this.  Every  detail 
of  the  story  is  here  pictorially  displayed  in  colors,  from  the 
time  when  the  young  man  demands  his  patrimony  through  all 
the  various  temptations  he  met  with  in  being  helped  to  spend 
it,  there  being  a  naive  richness  of  detail  in  the  matter  of  the 
temptations  that  is  quite  medieval,  from  the  boon  companions 
who  first  led  him  astray  to  the  depths  of  degradation  which 
he  finally  reached  before  he  returned  to  his  father, — even 
the  picture  of  the  fatted  calf  is  not  lacking. 

On  others  of  these  windows  there  are  the  stories  of  the 
Patron  Saints  of  certain  crafts.  The  life  of  St.  Crispin  the 
shoemaker  is  given  in  rather  full  detail.  The  same  is  true  of 
St.  Romain  the  hunter  who  was  the  patron  of  the  furriers. 
The  most  ordinary  experiences  of  life  are  pictured  and  the 
methods  by  which  these  were  turned  to  account  in  making  the 
craftsman  a  saint,  must  have  been  in  many  ways  an  ideally 
uplifting  example  for  fellow  craftsmen  whenever  they  viewed 
the  window.  This  sort  of  teaching  could  not  be  without  its 
effect  upon  the  poor.  It  taught  them  that  there  was  some- 
thing else  in  life  besides  money  getting  and  that  happiness 
and  contentment  might  be  theirs  in  a  chosen  occupation  and 
the  reward  of  Heaven  at  the  end  of  it  all,  for  at  the  top  of 
these  windows  the  hand  of  the  Almighty  is  introduced  reach- 
ing down  from  Heaven  to  reward  his  faithful  servants.  It 
is  just  by  such  presentation  of  ideals  even  to  the  poor,  that 


112  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  Thirteenth  Century  differs  from  the  modern  time  in  which 
even  the  teaching  in  the  schools  seems  only  to  emphasize  the 
fact  that  men  must  get  money,  honestly  if  they  can,  but  must 
get  money,  if  they  would  have  what  is  called  success  in  life. 

Another  very  interesting  feature  of  these  windows  is  the 
fact  that  they  were  usually  the  gifts  of  the  various  Guilds  and 
so  represented  much  more  of  interest  for  the  members.  It 
is  true  that  in  France,  particularly,  the  monarchs  frequently  pre  • 
sented  stained  glass  windows  and  in  St.  Louis  time  this  was  so 
common  that  scarcely  a  French  Cathedral  was  without  one  or 
more  testimonials  of  this  kind  to  his  generosity;  but  most  of 
the  windows  were  given  by  various  societies  among  the  people 
themselves.  How  much  the  construction  of  such  a  window 
when  it  was  well  done,  would  make  for  the  education  in  taste 
of  those  who  contributed  to  the  expense  of  its  erection,  can 
scarcely  be  over-estimated.  There  was  besides  a  friendly  ri- 
valry in  this  matter  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  which  served  to 
bring  out  the  talents  of  local  artists  and  by  the  inevitably  sug- 
gested comparisons  eventually  served  to  educate  the  taste  of  the 
people. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  it  was  only  in 
stained  glass  and  painting  and  sculpture — the  major  arts — 
that  these  workmen  attained  their  triumphs.  Practically  every 
detail  of  Cathedral  construction  is  a  monument  to  the  artis- 
tic genius  of  the  century,  to  the  wonderful  inspiration  afforded 
the  workmen  and  to  the  education  provided  by  the  Guilds 
which  really  maintained,  as  we  shall  see,  a  kind  of  Technical 
School  with  the  approbation  and  the  fostering  care  of  the 
ecclesiastics  connected  with  the  Cathedrals.  An  excellent  ex- 
ample of  a  very  different  class  of  work  may  be  noted  in  the 
hinges  of  the  Cloister  door  of  the  Cathedral  at  York.  Per- 
sonally I  have  seen  three  art  designers  sketching  these  at  the 
same  time  only  one  of  whom  was  an  Englishman,  another  com- 
ing from  the  continent  and  the  third  from  America.  The 
hinge  still  swings  the  heavy  oak  door  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury. The  arborization  of  the  metal  as  it  spreads  out  from  the 
main  shaft  of  the  hinge  is  beautifully  decorative  in  effect. 
A  little  study  of  the  hinge  seems  to  show  that  these  branching 
portions  were  so  arranged  as  to  make  the  mechanical  mo- 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  113 

• 

ment  of  the  swinging  door  less  of  a  dead  weight  than  it  would 
have  been  if  the  hinge  were  a  solid  bar  of  iron.  Besides  the 
spreading  of  the  branches  over  a  wide  surface  serves  to  hold 
the  woodwork  of  the  door  thoroughly  in  place.  While  the 
hinge  was  beautiful,  then  it  was  eminently  useful  from  a  good 
many  standpoints,  and  trivial  though  it  might  be  considered 
to  be,  it  was  in  reality  a  type  of  all  the  work  accomplished  in 
connection  with  these  Thirteenth  Century  Cathedrals.  Ac- 
cording to  the  old  Latin  proverb  "omne  tulit  punctum  qui  mis- 
cuit  utile  dulci,"  he  scores  every  point  who  mingles  the  use- 
ful with  the  beautiful,  and  certainly  the  Thirteenth  Century 
workman  succeeded  in  accomplishing  the  desideratum  to  an 
eminent  degree.  This  mingling  of  the  useful  and  the  beau- 
tiful is  of  itself  a  supreme  difference  between  the  Thirteenth 
Century  generations  and  our  own.  Mr.  Yeats,  the  well  known 
Irish  poet,  in  bidding  farewell  to  America  some  years  ago 
said  to  a  party  of  friends,  that  no  country  could  consider  it- 
self to  be  making  real  progress  in  culture  until  the  very  uten- 
sils in  the  kitchen  were  beautiful  as  well  as  useful.  Anything 
that  is  merely  useful  is  hideous,  and  anyone  who  can  handle 
such  things  with  impunity  has  not  true  culture.  In  the 
Thirteenth  Century  they  never  by  any  chance  made  anything 
that  was  merely  useful,  especially  not  if  it  was  to  be  associated 
with  their  beloved  Cathedral. 

An  excellent  example  of  this  can  be  found  in  their  Chalices 
and  other  ceremonial  utensils  which  were  meant  for  Divine 
Service.  As  we  have  said  elsewhere  The  Craftsman,  the 
journal  of  the  Arts  and  Crafts  Movement  in  this  country 
not  long  since  compared  a  Chalice  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
with  the  prize  cups  which  are  offered  for  yacht  races  and  other 
competitions  in  this  country.  We  may  say  at  once  that  the 
form  which  the  Chalice  received  during  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury is  that  which  constitutes  to  a  great  extent  the  model  for 
this  sacred  vessel  ever  since  and  the  comparison  with  the  mod- 
ern design  is  therefore  all  the  more  interesting.  In  spite  of 
the  fact  that  money  is  no  object  as  a  rule  in  the  construction 
of  many  of  the  modern  prize  cups,  they  compare  unfavor- 
ably according  to  the  writer  in  The  Craftsman  with  the  old  time 
chalices.  There  is  a  tendency  to  over  ornamentation  which 


114  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

spoils  the  effectiveness  of  the  lines  of  the  metal  work  in  many 
cases  and  there  is  also  only  too  often,  an  attempt  to  introduce 
forms  of  plastic  art  which  do  not  lend  themselves  well  to  this 
class  of  work.  It  is  in  design  particularly  that  the  older  work- 
man excels  his  modern  colleague  though  usually  there  are 
suggestions  from  several  sources  for  present  day  work.  In 
a  word  the  Thirteenth  Century  Chalice  was  much  more  ad- 
mirable than  the  modern  piece  of  metal  work,  because  the  lines 
were  simpler,  the  combination  of  beauty  with  utility  more 
icadily  recognizable  and  the  obtrusiveness  of  the  ornamenta- 
tion much  less  marked. 

This  same  thing  is  true  for  other  even  coarser  forms  of 
metal  work  in  connection  with  the  Cathedrals,  and  anyone 
who  has  seen  some  of  the  beautiful  iron  screens  built  for 
Cathedral  choirs  in  the  olden  times  will  realize  that  even  the 
worker  in  iron  must  have  been  an  artist  as  well  as  a  blacksmith. 
The  effect  produced,  especially  in  the  dim  light  of  the  Cathe- 
dral, is  often  that  of  delicate  lace  work.  To  appreciate  the 
strength  of  the  screen  one  must  actually  test  it  with  the 
hands.  This  of  itself  represents  a  very  charming  adaptation 
of  what  might  be  expected  to  be  rough  work  meant  for  pro- 
tective purposes  into  a  suitable  ornament.  Some  of  the 
gates  of  the  old  churchyards  are  very  beautiful  in  their  de- 
signs and  have  often  been  imitated  in  quite  recent  years,  for 
the  gates  of  country  places,  for  our  modern  millionaires.  The 
Reverend  Augustus  Jessop  who  has  written  much  with  re- 
gard to  the  times  before  the  Reformation,  says  that  he  has 
found  in  his  investigations, that  not  infrequently  such  gates  were 
made  by  the  village  blacksmiths.  Most  of  the  old  parish  rec- 
ords are  lost  because  of  the  suppression  of  the  parishes  as 
well  as  the  monasteries  in  Henry  the  Eighth's  time.  Some  of 
the  original  documents  are,  however,  preserved  and  among 
them  are  receipts  from  the  village  blacksmith,  for  what  we  now 
admire  as  specimens  of  artistic  ironwork  and  corresponding 
receipts  from  the  village  carpenter,  for  woodwork  that  we 
now  consider  of  equally  high  order.  There  were  carved  bench 
ends  and  choir  stalls  which  seem  to  have  been  produced  in 
this  way.  Just  how  these  generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, in  little  towns  of  less  than  ten  thousand  inhabitants,  sue- 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  115 

ceeded  in  raising  up  artisans  in  numbers,  capable  of  doing 
such  fine  work,  and  yet  content  to  make  their  living  at  such 
ordinary  occupations,  is  indeed  hard  to  understand.  It  must 
not  be  forgotten,  moreover,  that  though  there  was  not  much 
furniture  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  what  little  there  was, 
was  as  a  rule  very  carefully  and  artistically  made.  Thirteenth 
Century  benches  and  tables  are  famous.  Cathedrals  and 
castles  worked  together  in  inspiring  and  giving  occupation 
to  these  wonderful  workmen. 

It  was  not  only  the  workmen  engaged  in  the  construction 
of  the  edifices  proper  who  made  the  beautiful  things  and 
created  marvelously  artistic  treasures  during  this  cen- 
tury. All  the  adornments  of  the  Cathedrals  and  especially 
everything  associated  in  any  intimate  way  with  the  religious 
service  was  sure  to  be  executed  with  the  most  delicate  taste. 
The  vestments  of  the  time  are  some  of  the  most 
beautiful  that  have  ever  been  made.  The  historians 
of  needlework  tell  us  that  this  period  represents  the 
most  flourishing  era  of  artistic  accomplishment  with 
the  needle  of  all  modern  history.  One  example  of  this  has 
secured  a  large  share  of  notoriety  in  quite  recent  years.  An 
American  millionaire  bought  the  famous  piece  of  needlework 
known  as  the  Cope  of  Ascoli.  This  is  an  example  of  the  large 
garment  worn  over  the  shoulders  in  religious  processions  and 
at  benediction.  The  price  paid  for  the  garment  is  said  to 
have  been  $60,000.  This  was  not  considered  extortionate  or 
enforced,  as  the  Cope  was  declared  by  experts  to  be  one  of  the 
finest  pieces  of  needlework  in  the  world.  The  jewels  which  or- 
iginally adorned  it  had  been  removed  so  that  the  money  was 
paid  for  the  needlework  itself.  After  a  time  it  became  clear 
that  the  Cope  had  been  stolen  before  being  sold,  and  accord- 
ingly it  was  returned  to  the  Italian  government  who  presented 
the  American  millionaire  with  a  medal  for  his  honesty. 

We  have  spoken  of  the  Cathedrals  as  great  stone  books,  in 
which  he  who  ran,  might  read,  even  though  he  were  not  able  to 
read  in  the  technical  sense  of  the  term.  This  has  been  an  old- 
time  expression  with  regard  to  the  Cathedrals,  but  not  even  its 
inventor  perhaps,  and  certainly  not  most  of  those  who  have  re- 
peated it  have  realized  how  literally  true  was  the  saying.  I 


116  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

have  elsewhere  quoted  from  Reinach's  Story  of  Art  Through- 
out the  Ages  as  an  authority  on  the  subject.  His  re-statement 
of  the  intellectual  significance  for  the  people  of  the  Cathedrals 
of  their  towns,  in  which  it  must  be  remembered  that  they  had 
a  personal  interest  because  in  a  sense  they  were  really  theirs, 
and  they  felt  their  ownership  quite  as  much  as  a  modern  mem- 
ber of  a  parish  feels  with  regard  to  his  church,  emphasizes  and 
illuminates  this  subject  to  a  wonderful  degree.  The  realization 
that  the  information  of  the  time  was  deliberately  woven  into 
these  great  stone  structures,  mainly  of  course  for  decora- 
tive purposes,  but  partly  also  with  the  idea  of  educating  the 
people,  is  a  startling  confirmation  of  the  idea  that  education 
was  the  most  important  and  significant  work  of  this  great 
century. 

"The  Gothic  Cathedral  is  a  perfect  encyclopedia  of  human 
knowledge.  It  contains  scenes  from  the  Scriptures  and  the 
legends  of  saints ;  motives  from  the  animal  and  vegetable  king- 
dom; representations  of  the  seasons  of  agricultural  labor,  of 
the  arts  and  sciences  and  crafts,  and  finally  moral  allegories, 
as,  for  instance,  ingenious  personifications  of  the  virtues  and 
the  vices.  In  the  Thirteenth  Century  a  learned  Dominican, 
Vincent  of  Beauvais,  was  employed  by  St.  Louis  to  write  a 
great  work  which  was  to  be  an  epitome  of  all  the  knowledge  of 
bis  times.  This  compilation,  called  The  Mirror  of  the  World, 
is  divided  into  four  parts :  The  Mirror  of  Nature,  The  Mirror 
of  Science,  the  Moral  Mirror,  and  the  Historical  Mirror.  A 
contemporary  archaeologist,  M.  E.  Male,  has  shown  that  the 
works  of  art  of  our  great  cathedrals  are  a  translation  into 
stone  of  the  Mirror  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  setting  aside  the 
episodes  from  Greek  and  Roman  History,  which  would  have 
been  out  of  place.  It  was  not  that  the  imagers  had  read  Vin- 
cent's work ;  but  that,  like  him,  they  sought  to  epitomise  all  the 
knowledge  of  their  contemporaries.  The  first  aim  of  their 
art  is  not  to  please,  but  to  teach ;  they  offer  an  encyclopedia  for 
the  use  of  those  who  cannot  read,  translated  by  sculptor  or 
glass-painter  into  a  clear  and  precise  language,  under  the  lofty 
direction  of  the  Church  which  left  nothing  to  chance.  It  was 
present  always  and  everywhere,  advising  and  superintending 
the  artist,  leaving  him  to  his  own  devices  only  when  he 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  117 

modelled  the  fantastic  animals  of  the  gargoyles,  01  borrowed 
decorative  motives  from  the  vegetable  kingdom."* 

As  to  how  much  the  cathedrals  held  of  meaning  for  those 
who  built  them  and  worshiped  in  them,  only  a  careful  study  of 
the  symbolism  of  the  time  will  enable  the  present-day  admirer 
to  understand.  Modern  generations  have  lost  most  of  their 
appreciation  of  the  significance  of  symbolism.  The  occupation 
of  mind  with  the  trivial  things  that  are  usually  read  in  our 
day,  leaves  little  or  no  room  for  the  study  of  the  profounder 
thought  an  artist  may  care  to  put  into  his  work,  and  so 
the  modern  artist  tells  his  story  as  far  as  possible  without  any 
of  this  deeper  significance,  since  it  would  only  be  lost.  In  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  however,  everything  artistic  had  a  second- 
ary meaning.  Literature  was  full  of  allegories,  even  the  Arthur 
Legends  were  considered  to  be  the  expression  of  the  battle  of 
a  soul  with  worldly  influences  as  well  as  a  poetic  presentation 
of  the  story  of  the  old  time  British  King.  The  Gothic  Cathe- 
drals were  a  mass  of  symbolism.  This  will  perhaps  be  best  un- 
derstood from  the  following  explanation  of  Cathedral  sym- 
bolism, which  we  take  from  the  translation  of  Durandus's  work 
on  the  meaning  of  the  Divine  Offices,  a  further  account  of 
which  will  be  found  in  the  chapter  on  The  Prose  of  the 
Century. 

"Far  away  and  long  ere  we  can  catch  the  first  view  of  the  city 
itself,  the  three  spires  of  its  Cathedral,  rising  high  above  its 
din  and  turmoil,  preach  to  us  of  the  Most  High  and  Undivided 
Trinity.  As  we  approach,  the  Transepts,  striking  out  cross- 
wise, tell  of  the  Atonement.  The  Communion  of  Saints  is  set 
forth  by  the  chapels  clustering  around  Choir  and  Nave:  the 
mystical  weathercock  bids  us  to  watch  and  pray  and  endure 
hardness ;  the  hideous  forms  that  are  seen  hurrying  from  tne 
eaves  speak  the  misery  of  those  who  are  cast  out  of  the 
church;  spire,  pinnacle,  and  finial,  the  upward  curl  of  the 
sculptured  foliage,  the  upward  spring  of  the  flying  buttress, 
the  sharp  rise  of  the  window  arch,  the  high  thrown  pitch  of  the 
roof,  all  these,  overpowering  the  horizontal  tendency  of  string 
course  and  parapet,  teach  us,  that  vanquishing  earthly  desires. 
we  also  should  ascend  in  heart  and  mind.  Lessons  of  holy 

*Reinach — The  Story  of  Art  Throughout  the  Ages.    Scribner's,  1904. 


118  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

wisdom  are  written  in  the  delicate  tracery  of  the  windows; 
the  unity  of  many  members  is  shadowed  forth  by  the  multiplex 
arcade ;  the  duty  of  letting  our  light  shine  before  men,  by  the 
pierced  and  flowered  parapet  that  crowns  the  whole. 

We  enter.  The  triple  breadth  of  Nave  and  Aisles,  the  triple 
height  of  Pier  arch,  Triforium,  and  Clerestory,  the  triple  length 
of  Choir,  Transepts,  and  Nave,  again  set  forth  the  HOLY 
TRINITY.  And  what  besides  is  there  that  does  not  tell  of  our 
Blessed  SAVIOUR?  that  does  not  point  out  "HIM  First"  in 
the  two-fold  western  door;  "HIM  Last"  in  the  distant  altar; 
"HIM  Midst,"  in  the  great  Rood;  "HIM  Without  End,"  in 
the  monogram  carved  on  boss  and  corbel,  in  the  Holy  Lamb,  in 
the  Lion  of  the  tribe  of  Judah,  in  the  Mystic  Fish?  Close  by 
us  is  the  font;  for  by  regeneration  we  enter  the  Church;  it 
is  deep  and  capacious;  for  we  are  buried  in  Baptism  with 
CHRIST;  it  is  of  stone,  for  HE  is  the  Rock;  and  its  spiry 
cover  teaches  us,  if  we  be  indeed  risen  from  its  waters  with 
HIM,  to  seek  those  things  which  are  above.  Before  us  in 
long-drawn  vista  are  the  massy  piers,  which  are  the  Apostles 
and  Prophets — they  are  each  of  many  members,  for  many  are 
the  Graces  in  every  Saint,  there  is  beautifully  delicate  foliage 
round  the  head  of  all;  for  all  were  plentiful  in  good  works. 
Beneath  our  feet  are  the  badges  of  worldly  pomp  and  glory, 
the  graves  of  Kings  and  Nobles  and  Knights ;  all  in  the  Pres- 
ence of  God  as  dross  and  worthlessness.  Over  us  swells 
the  vast  valley  of  the  high  pitched  roof ;  from  the  crossing  and 
interlacing  of  its  curious  rafters  hang  fadeless  flowers  and 
fruits  which  are  not  of  earth ;  from  its  hammer-beams  project 
wreaths  and  stars  such  as  adorn  heavenly  beings;  in  its 
center  stands  the  LAMB  as  it  has  been  slain;  from  around 
HIM  the  celestial  Host,  Cherubim  and  Seraphim,  Thrones, 
Principalities,  and  Powers,  look  down  peacefully  on  the  wor- 
shipers below.  Harpers  there  are  among  them  harping  with 
their  harps ;  for  one  is  the  song  of  the  Church  in  earth  and  in 
Heaven.  Through  the  walls  wind  the  narrow  cloister  galleries ; 
emblems  of  the  path  by  which  holy  hermits  and  anchorets 
whose  conflicts  were  known  only  to  their  GOD,  have  reached 
their  Home.  And  we  are  compassed  about  with  a  mighty 
cloud  of  witnesses ;  the  rich  deep  glass  of  the  windows  teems 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  119 

with  saintly  forms,  each  in  its  own  fair  niche,  all  invested  with 
the  same  holy  repose;  there  is  the  glorious  company  of  the 
Apostles ;  the  goodly  fellowship  of  the  Prophets ;  the  noble  army 
of  Martyrs ;  the  shining  band  of  Confessors ;  the  jubilant  chorus 
of  the  Virgins ;  there  are  Kings,  who  have  long  since  changed 
an  earthly  for  an  heavenly  crown ;  and  Bishops  who  have  given 
in  a  glad  account  to  the  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  souls.  But  on 
none  of  these  things  do  we  rest ;  piers,  arch  behind  arch,  win- 
dows, light  behind  light,  arcades,  shaft  behind  shaft,  the  roof, 
bay  behind  bay,  the  Saints  around  us,  the  Heavenly  Hierarchy 
above  with  dignity  of  preeminence  still  increasing  eastward, 
each  and  all,  lead  on  eye  and  soul  and  thought  to  the  Image  of 
the  Crucified  Saviour  as  dispayed  on  the  great  East  window. 
Gazing  steadfastly  on  that  we  pass  up  the  Nave,  that  is  through 
the  Church  Militant,  till  we  reach  the  Rood  Screen,  the  barrier 
between  it  and  the  Church  Triumphant,  and  therein  shadowing 
forth  the  death  of  the  Faithful.  High  above  it  hangs  on  His 
Triumphant  Cross  the  image  of  Him  who  by  His  death  hath 
overcome  death;  on  it  are  portrayed  Saints  and  Martyrs,  His 
warriors  who,  fighting  under  their  LORD  have  entered  into 
rest  and  inherit  a  tearless  eternity.  They  are  to  be  our  ex- 
amples, and  the  seven  lamps  above  them  typify  those  graces  of 
the  SPIRIT,  by  Whom  alone  we  can  tread  in  their  steps.  The 
screen  itself  glows  with  gold  and  crimson ;  with  gold,  for  they 
have  on  their  heads  goden  crowns;  with  crimson,  for  they 
passed  the  Red  Sea  of  Martyrdom,  to  obtain  them.  And 
through  the  delicate  network,  and  the  unfolding  Holy  Doors, 
we  catch  faint  glimpses  of  the  Chancel  beyond.  There  are  the 
massy  stalls ;  for  in  Heaven  is  everlasting  rest ;  there  are  the 
Sedilia,  emblems  of  the  seats  of  the  Elders  round  the  Throne ; 
there  is  the  Piscina ;  for  they  have  washed  their  robes  and  made 
them  white ;  and  there  heart  and  soul  and  life  of  all,  the  Altar 
with  its  unquenched  lights,  and  golden  carvings,  and  mystic 
steps,  and  sparkling  jewels ;  even  CHRIST  Himself,  by  Whose 
only  Merits  we  find  admission  to  our  Heavenly  Inheritance. 
Verily,  as  we  think  on  the  oneness  of  its  design,  we  may  say: 
Jerusalem  edificatur  ut  civitas  cujus  participatio  ejus  in  idip- 


120  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

It  is  because  of  all  this  wealth  of  meaning  embodied  in 
them,  that  the  Cathedrals  of  this  old  time  continue  to  be  so  inter- 
esting and  so  unfailingly  attractive  even  to  our  distant  and  so 
differently  constituted  generation.* 

We  cannot  close  this  chapter  on  the  Book  of  the  Arts  leav- 
ing the  impression  that  only  the  Church  Architecture  of  the 
time  deserves  to  be  considered  in  the  category  of  great  art 
influences.  There  were  many  municipal  buildings,  some 
stately  castles,  and  a  large  number  of  impressively  magnificent 
Abbeys  and  Monasteries,  besides  educational  and  charitable 
institutions  built  at  this  same  time.  The  town  halls  of  some  of 
the  great  Hansa  towns,  that  is,  the  German  free  cities  that  were 
members  of  the  Hanseatic  League,  present  some  very  striking 
examples  of  the  civil  architecture  of  the  period.  It  has  the 
same  characteristics  that  we  have  discussed  in  treating  of  the 
Cathedrals.  While  wonderfully  impressive  it  was  eminently 
suitable  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  was  intended  and  the  deco- 
rations always  forming  integral  parts  of  the  structure,  sounded 
the  note  of  the  combination  of  beauty  with  utility  which  is  so 
characteristic  of  every  phase  of  the  art  accomplishment 
of  the  century. 

Some  of  the  castles  would  deserve  special  description  by 
themselves  but  unfortunately  space  forbids  more  than  a  passing 
mention.  Certain  castellated  fortresses  still  standing  in  Eng- 
land and  Ireland  come  from  the  time  of  King  John,  and  are 
excellent  examples  of  the  stability  and  forceful  character  of 
this  form  of  architecture  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  is  in- 
teresting to  find  that  when  we  come  to  build  in  the  Twentieth 
Century  in  America,  the  armories  which  are  to  be  used  for  the 
training  of  our  militia  and  the  storage  of  arms  and  ammuni- 
tion, many  of  the  ideas  used  in  their  construction  are  bor- 
rowed from  this  olden  time.  There  is  a  famous  castle  in 
Limerick,  Ireland,  built  in  John's  time  which  constitutes  an  ex- 

*  Those  who  care  to  realize  to  some  degree  all  the  wonderful  symbolic 
meaning  of  the  ornamentation  of  some  of  these  cathedrals,  should  read 
M.  Huysman's  book  La  Cathedrale,  which  has,  we  believe,  been  trans- 
lated into  English.  Needless  to  say  it  has  been  often  in  our  hands  in 
compiling  this  chapter,  and  the  death  of  its  author  as  this  chapter  is 
going  through  the  press  poignantly  recalls  all  the  beauty  of  his  work. 


DURHAM  CASTLE   AND  CATHEDRAL 


KIXC,    JOHN'S    CASTLE    (LIMERICK) 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  121 

cellent  example  of  this  and  which  has  doubtlessly  often  been 
studied  and  more  or  less  imitated. 

One  portion  of  Kenilworth  Castle  in  England  dates  from  the 
Thirteenth  Century  and  has  been  often  the  subject  of  careful 
study  by  modern  architects.  The  same  thing  might  be  said  of 
many  others. 

With  regard  to  the  English  Abbeys  too  much  cannot  be  said 
in  praise  of  their  architecture  and  it  has  been  the  model  for 
large  educational  and  municipal  buildings  ever  since.  St. 
Mary's  Abbey  at  York,  though  only  a  few  scattered  fragments 
of  its  beauties  are  to  be  seen  and  very  little  of  its  walls  still 
?tand,  is  almost  as  interesting  as  Yorkminster,  the  great 
Cathedral  itself.  There  were  many  such  abbeys  as  this  built 
in  England  during  the  Thirteenth  Century — more  than  a  dozen 
of  them  at  least  and  probably  a  full  score.  All  of  them  are  as 
distinguished  in  the  history  of  architecture  as  the  English 
Cathedrals.  It  will  be  remembered  that  what  is  now  called 
Westminster  Abbey  was  not  a  Cathedral  church,  but  only  a 
monastery  church  attached  to  the  Abbey  of  Westminster  and 
this,  the  only  well  preserved  example  of  its  class  furnishes  an 
excellent  idea  of  what  these  religious  institutions  signify  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  They  meant  as  much  for  the  art  impulse 
as  the  Cathedrals  themselves. 

One  feature  of  these  monastic  establishments  deserves  spe- 
cial mention.  The  cloisters  were  usually  constructed  so  beau- 
tifully as  to  make  them  veritable  gems  of  the  art  of  the 
period.  These  cloisters  were  the  porticos  usually  surrounding 
a  garden  of  the  monastery  within  which  the  Monks  could  walk, 
shaded  from  the  sun,  and  protected  from  the  rain  and  the 
snow.  They  might  very  easily  have  been  hideously  useful 
porches,  especially  as  they  were  quite  concealed  from  the  outer 
world  as  a  rule,  and  those  not  belonging  to  the  order  were  not 
admitted  to  them  except  on  very  special  occasions.  The  name 
cloister  signifies  an  enclosed  place  and  lay  persons  were  not 
ordinarily  admitted  to  them.  Those  who  know  anything  about 
them  will  recall  what  beautiful  constructive  work  was  put 
into  them.  Certain  examples  as  that  of  St.  John  Lateran 
in  Rome  and  the  Cloister  of  St.  Paul's  without  the 
walls  some  five  miles  from  Rome,  constructed  during  the 


122  CREATES!  OF  CENTURIES. 

Thirteenth  Century  and  under  the  influence  of  the  same  great 
art  movement  as  gave  the  Cathedrals,  are  the  most  beautiful 
specimens  that  now  remain.  The  only  thing  that  they  can  be 
compared  with  is  the  famous  Angel  Choir  at  Lincoln  which 
indeed  they  recall  in  many  ways. 

The  pictures  of  these  two  Cloisters  which  we  present  will 
give  some  idea  of  their  beauty.  To  be  thoroughly  appreciated, 
however,  they  must  be  seen,  for  there  is  a  delicacy  of  finish 
about  every  detail  that  makes  them  an  unending  source  of  ad- 
miration and  brings  people  back  again  and  again  to  see  them, 
yet  always  to  find  something  new  and  apparently  unnoticed  be- 
fore. It  might  be  thought  that  the  studied  variety  in  the 
columns  so  that  no  two  are  of  exactly  the  same  form,  would  pro- 
duce a  bizarre  effect.  The  lack  of  symmetry  that  might  result 
from  this  same  feature  could  be  expected  to  spoil  their  essen- 
tial beauty.  Neither  of  these  effects  has  been  produced,  how- 
ever. The  Cloisters  were,  moreover,  not  purple  patches  on 
monasteries,  but  ever  worthy  portions  of  very  beautiful  build- 
ings. 

All  of  these  buildings  were  furnished  as  regards  their  metal 
work,  their  wood  work,  and  the  portions  that  lent  themselves 
to  decoration,  in  the  same  spirit  as  the  Cathedrals  themselves. 
The  magnificent  tables  and  benches  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
are  still  considered  to  be  the  best  models  of  simplicity  of  line 
with  beauty  of  form  and  eminent  durability  in  the  history  of 
furniture  making.  The  fashion  for  Colonial  furniture  in  our 
own  time  has  brought  us  nearer  to  such  Thirteenth  Century 
furniture  making  than  has  been  true  at  any  other  time  in  his- 
tory. Here  once  more  there  was  one  of  these  delightful  com- 
binations of  beauty  and  utility  which  is  so  characteristic  of 
the  century.  Even  the  kitchen  utensils  were  beautiful  as  well 
?s  useful  and  the  Irish  poet  might  have  been  satisfied  to  his 
heart's  content. 

Certain  other  architectural  forms  were  wonderfully  devel- 
oped during  the  Thirteenth  Century  and  the  opening  years  of 
the  Fourteenth  Century  while  men  trained  during  the  former 
period  were  still  at  work.  Giotto's  tower,  for  instance,  must  be 
considered  a  Thirteenth  Century  product  since  its  architect 
was  well  past  thirty-five  years  of  age  before  the  Thirteenth 


~- 


s 


POPULAR  EDUCATION.  123 

Century  closed  and  all  his  artistic  character  had  been  formed 
under  its  precious  inspiration.  It  is  a  curious  reflection  on  mod- 
ern architecture,  that  some  of  the  modern  high  business  build- 
ings are  saved  from  being  hideous  just  in  as  much  as  they 
approach  the  character  of  some  of  these  tower-like  structures 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  first  of  New  York's  sky- 
scrapers which  is  said  to  have  escaped  the  stigma  of  being  ut- 
terly ugly,  as  most  of  them  are,  because  of  their  appeal  to 
mere  utility,  was  the  New  York  Times  Building  which  is  just 
Giotto's  tower  on  a  large  scale  set  down  on  Broadway  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Twentieth  Century.  Seen  from  a 
mile  away  the  effect  is  exactly  that  of  the  great  Florentine 
architect's  beautiful  structure  and  this  was  of  course 
the  deliberate  intention  of  the  modern  architect.  Any- 
one who  would  think,  however,  that  our  modern  busi- 
ness building  with  its  plain  walls  recalls  in  any  ade- 
quate sense  its  great  pattern,  should  read  what  Mr. 
Ruskin  has  said  with  regard  to  the  wealth  of  meaning  that 
is  to  be  found  in  Giotto's  tower.  Into  such  structures  just  as 
into  the  Cathedrals,  the  architects  and  builders  of  the  time  suc- 
ceeded in  putting  a  whole  burden  of  suggestion,  which  to  the 
generations  of  the  time  in  which  they  were  built,  accustomed 
to  the  symbolism  of  every  art  feature  in  life  around  them,  had 
a  precious  wealth  of  significance  that  we  can  only  appreciate 
after  deep  study  and  long  contemplation.  We  have  felt  that 
only  the  quotation  from  Mr.  Ruskin  himself  can  fully  illustrate 
what  we  wish  to  convey  in  this  matter. 

"Of  these  representations  of  human  art  under  heavenly  gui- 
dance, the  series  of  basreliefs  which  stud  the  base  of  this  tower 
of  Giotto's  must  be  held  certainly  the  chief  in  Europe.  At  first 
you  may  be  surprised  at  the  smallness  of  their  scale  in  propor- 
tion to  their  masonry;  but  this  smallness  of  scale  enabled  the 
master  workmen  of  the  tower  to  execute  them  with  their  own 
hands;  and  for  the  rest,  in  the  very  finest  architecture,  the 
decoration  of  most  precious  kind  is  usually  thought  of  as  a 
jewel,  and  set  with  space  round  it — as  the  jewels  of  a  crown, 
or  the  clasp  of  a  girdle." 


124  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

VII 

ARTS  AND  CRAFTS— GREAT  TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS. 


The  most  interesting  social  movement  in  our  time  is  un- 
doubtedly that  of  the  art£  and  crafts.  "Its  central  idea  is  to  lift 
I  the  workmen  up  above  the  mere  machine  that  he  is  likely  to 
I  become,  as  the  result  of  the  monotonous  occupation  at  some 
trade  that  requires  him  only  to  do  a  constantly  repeated  series 
of  acts,  or  direct  one  little  portion  of  machinery  and  so  kills  the 
soul  in  him.  Of  course,  the  other  idea  that  a  generation  of 
workmen  shall  be  created,  who  will  be  able  to  make  beautiful 
things  for  the  use  of  the  household  as  well  as  the  adornment 
of  the  house  is  another  principal  purpose.  Too  many  people 
have  mistaken  this  entirely  secondary  aim  of  the  movement 
for  its  primary  end.  It  is  because  of  the  effect  upon  the  work- 
man himself  of  the  effort  to  use  his  intellect  in  the  designing, 
his  taste  in  the  arrangement,  and  his  artisan  skill  for  the  execu- 
tion of  beautiful  things,  that  the  arts  and  crafts  movement  has 
its  appeal  to  the  generality  of  mankind. 

The  success  of  the  movement  promises  to  do  more  to  solve 
social  problems  than  all  the  socialistic  agitation  that  is  at 
present  causing  so  much  dismay  in  some  quarters  and  raising 
so  many  hopes  that  are  destined  to  be  disappointed  in  the 
hearts  ot  the  laboring  classes.  The  solution  of  the  problem 
of  social  unrest  is  to  be  found,  not  in  creating  new  wants  for 
,  r-eople  and  giving  them  additional  wages  that  will  still  further 
stimulate  their  desire  to  have  many  things  that  will  continue  to 
be  in  spite  of  increased  wages  beyond  their  means,  but  rather  to 
give  them  such  an  interest  in  their  life  work  that  their  prin- 
cipal source  of  pleasure  is  to  be  found  in  their  occupation. 
Unfortunately  work  has  come  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  drudgery 
and  as  men  must  spend  the  greater  portion  of  their  lives,  at 
least  the  vast  majority  of  them  must,  in  doing  something  that 
will  enable  them  to  make  a  living,  it  is  clear  that  unhappiness 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS.  125 

and  discontent  will  still  continue.  Blessed  is  the  man  who  has 
found  his  work,  blessed  is  the  man  to  whom  his  work  appeals 
with  so  much  interest  that  he  goes  from  it  with  a  longing  to  be 
able  to  finish  what  he  has  been  at,  and  comes  back  to  it  with  a 
prospect  that  now  he  shall  be  able  to  accomplish  what  time  and 
perhaps  fatigue  would  not  allow  him  to  proceed  with  the  day  be- 
fore. 

This  is  the  best  feature  of  the  promises  held  out  by  the  arts 
and  crafts  movement,  that  men  shall  be  interested  in  the  work 
they  do.  This  may  seem  to  some  people  an  unrealizable  idea, 
and  a  poetic  aspiration  rather  than  a  possible  actuality.  A 
little  study  of  what  was  accomplished  in  this  line  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  will  surely  prove  even  to  the  most  skeptical 
how  much  of  success  is  capable  of  being  realized  in  this  matter. 
The  men  who  worked  around  the  Cathedrals  were  given  oppor- 
tunities to  express  themselves  and  the  best  that  was  in  them  as 
no  class  of  workmen  before  or  since  have  ever  had  the  oppor- 
tunity. Every  single  portion  of  the  Cathedral  was  to  be  made 
as  beautiful  as  the  mind  of  man  could  conceive,  his  taste  could 
plan  and  his  hands  could  achieve.  As  a  consequence  the  car- 
penter had  the  chance  to  express  himself  in  the  woodwork,  the 
village  blacksmith  the  opportunity  to  display  his  skill  in  such 
1  small  ironwork  as  the  hinges  or  the  latch  for  the  door  and 
every  workman  felt  called  upon  to  do  the  best  that  was  in  him. 
It  is  easy  to  understand  under  these  circumstances  with 
what  interest  the  men  must  have  applied  themselves  to  their 
/  tasks.) They  were,  as  a  rule,  the  designers  as  well  as  the  execu- 
tors of  the  work  assigned  them.  They  planned  and  executed 
in  the  rough  and  tried,  then  modified  and  adapted,  until  finally 
as  we  know  of  most  of  the  Cathedrals,  their  finished  product/ 
was  as  nearly  perfect  in  most  particulars  as  it  is  ordinarily! 
given  to  man  to  achieve.  Their  aim  above  all  was  to  make 
such  a  combination  of  utility  with  beauty  of  line  yet  simplicity  I 
of  finish,  as  would  make  their  work  worthy  counterparts  of  all\ 
the  other  portions  of  the  Cathedral.  The  sense  of  competition 
must  have  stirred  men  to  the  very  depths  of  their  souls  and  yet 
it  was  not  the  heartless  rivalry  that  crushes  when  it  succeeds, 
tut  the  inspiring  emulation  that  makes  one  do  as  well  as  or  bet- 
ter than  others,  though  not  necessarily  in  such  a  way  as  to 


126  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

belittle  others'  efforts  by  contrast  or  humble  them  by  triumph. 

In  these  old  medieval  days  England  used  to  be  called  Merrie 
England  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  workmen  would  be 
profoundly  merry  at  heart,  when  they  had  the  consciousness  of 
accomplishing  such  good  work.  Men  must  have  almost  tardily 
quitted  their  labor  in  the  evening  while  they  hoped  and  strove 
to  accomplish  something  that  would  be  worthy  of  the  magnifi- 
cent building  in  which  so  many  of  their  fellow  workmen  were 
achieving  triumphs  of  handicraftsmanship.  Each  went  home 
to  rest  for  the  night,  but  also  to  dream  over  what  he  might  be 
able  to  do  and  awoke  in  the  morning  with  the  thought  that  pos- 
tibly  to-day  would  see  some  noteworthy  result.  This  repre- 
sents the  ideal  of  the  workman's  life.  He  has  an  interest  quite 
apart  from  the  mere  making  of  money.  The  picture  of  the 
modern  workman  by  contrast  looks  vain  and  sordid.  The  vast 
majority  of  our  workmen  labor  merely  because  they  must  make 
enough  money  to-day,  in  order  that  they  may  be  able  to  buy 
food  enough  so  as  to  get  strength  to  work  to-morrow.  Of  inter- 
est there  is  very  little.  Day  after  day  there  is  the  task  of  pro- 
viding for  self  and  others.  Only  this  and  nothing  more.  Is  it 
any  wonder  that  there  should  be  social  unrest  and  discon- 
tentment? How  can  workmen  be  merry  unless  with  the  arti- 
ficial stimulus  of  strong  drink,  when  there  is  nothing  for  them 
to  look  forward  to  except  days  and  weeks  and  years  of  labor 
succeeding  one  another  remorselessly,  and  with  no  surcease  un- 
til Nature  puts  in  her  effective  demand  for  rest,  or  the  inevi- 
table end  comes. 

It  would  be  idle  to  say  that  these  men  who  knew  how  to 
make  the  beautiful  things  for  these  cathedrals  were  not  consci- 
ous of  the  perfection  of  the  work  that  they  were  accomplishing. 
The  very  fact  that  each  in  his  own  line  was  achieving  such 
beautiful  results  must  have  stamped  him  as  thoroughly  capable 
of  appreciating  the  work  of  others.  The  source  of  pleasure  that 
there  must  have  been  therefore,  in  some  twenty  towns  in  Eng- 
land alone,  to  see  their  Cathedral  approaching  completion,  must 
have  been  of  itself  a  joy  far  beyond  anything  we  can  imagine  as 
possible  for  the  workmen  of  the  present  day.  The  interest  in  it 
was  supreme  and  was  only  heightened  by  the  fact  that  it  was 
being  done  by  relatives  and  friends  and  brother  workmen,  even 


FOUNTAIN    (PERUGIA).       [TOWN    PUMP] 


LAVATOIO   (TODI).      [PUBLIC  WASH  HOUSE] 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS.  127 

.though  they  might  be  rivals,  and  that  whatever  was  done  was 
|  redounding  first  to  the  glory  of  the  Lord  to  whom  they  turned 
with  so  much  confidence  in  these  ages  of  faith,  and  secondly, 
and  there  was  scarcely  less  satisfaction  in  the  thought,  to  the 
reputation  of  their  native  town  and  their  fellow-townsmen. 

This  is  the  feature  of  the  life  of  the  lower  classes  in  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  which  most  deserves  to  be  studied  in  our  time. 
We  hear  much  of  people  being  kept  in  ignorance  and  in  servi- 
tude. Men  who  talk  this  way  know  nothing  at  all  of  the  lives 
of  the  towns  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  are  able  to  appreciate  not 
even  in  the  slightest  degree  the  wonderful  system  ot  education, 
that  made  life  so  much  fuller  of  possibilities  for  intellectual 
development  for  all  classes  and  for  happiness  in  life,  than  any 
other  period  of  which  we  know.  This  phase  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  is  at  once  the  most  interesting,  the  most  significant  for 
future  generations,  and  the  most  important  in  its  lessons  for  all 
time. 

We  have  been  following  up  thus  far  the  exemplification  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  of  John  Ruskin's  saying,  that  if  you  wish 
to  get  at  the  real  significance  of  the  achievements  of  a  period  in 
history,  you  must  read  the  book  of  its  deeds,  the  book  oi  its 
arts  and  the  book  of  its  words.  We  have  been  turning  over  a 
few  of  the  pages  of  the  book  of  the  deeds  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  in  studying  the  history  of  the  establishment  of  the  uni- 
versities and  of  the  method  and  content  of  university  teaching. 
After  all  the  only  deeds  that  ought  to  count  in  the  history  of 
mankind  are  those  that  are  done  for  men — that  have  accom- 
plished something  for  the  uplift  of  mankind.  History  is  un- 
fortunately occupied  with  deeds  of  many  other  kinds,  and  it  is 
perhaps  the  saddest  blot  on  our  modern  education,  that  it  is 
mainly  the  history  of  deeds  that  have  been  destructive  of  man, 
of  human  happiness  and  in  only  too  many  cases  of  human  rights 
and  human  liberties,  that  are  supposed  to  be  most  worthy  of  the 
study  of  the  rising  generation.  History  as  written  for  schools 
is  to  a  great  extent  a  satire  on  efforts  for  social  progress. 

We  shall  continue  the  study  of  the  book  of  the  deeds  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  and  its  most  interesting  and  important 
chapter,  that  of  the  education  of  the  masses.  We  shall  find  in 
what  was  accomplished  in  educating  the  people  of  the  Thir- 


128  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

teentn  Century,  the  model  of  the  form  of  education  which  in 
spite  of  our  self-complacency  does  not  exist,  but  must  come  in 
our  time,  if  our  education  is  to  fulfil  its  real  purpose.  Perhaps 
the  most  interesting  phase  of  this  question  of  the  education  of 
the  masses  will  be  the  fact  that  in  studying  this  book  of  the 
deeds,  we  shall  have  also  to  study  once  more  the  book  of  the 
arts  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  All  their  best  accomplishment 
was  linked  with  achievement  and  progress  in  art.  Yet  it  was 
from  the  masses  that  the  large  number  of  artist-artisans  of 
workmen  with  the  true  artistic  spirit  came,  who  in  this  time 
in  nearly  every  part  of  Europe,  created  masterpieces  of  art 
in  every  department  which  have  since  been  the  admiration 
of  the  world. 

We  may  say  at  once  that  the  opportunity  for  the  education  of 
the  masses  was  furnished  in  connection  with  the  Cathedrals.  In 
the  light  of  what  we  read  in  these  great  stone  books,  it  is  a  con- 
stant source  of  surprise  that  the  Church  should  be  said  to  have 
been  opposed  to  education.  Reinach  in  his  Story  of  Art 
throughout  the  Ages  says : 

"The  Church  was  not  only  rich  and  powerful  in  the  Middle 
Ages;  it  dominated  and  directed  all  the  manifestations  of  hu- 
man activity.  There  was  practically  no  art  but  the  art  it  en- 
couraged, the  art  it  needed  to  construct  and  adorn  its  buildings, 
carve  its  ivories  and  its  reliquaries,  and  paint  its  glass  and  its 
missals.  Foremost  among  the  arts  it  fostered  was  architecture, 
which  never  played  so  important  a  part  in  any  other  society. 
Even  now,  when  we  enter  2*  Romanesque  or  Gothic  church,  we 
are  impressed  by  the  might  of  that  vast  force  of  which  it  is  the 
manifestation,  a  force  which  shaped  the  destinies  of  Europe  for 
a  thousand  years." 

It  was  as  the  result  of  this  demand  for  art  that  the  technical 
schools  naturally  developed  around  the  Cathedrals.  To  take 
the  example  of  England  alone,  during  the  Thirteenth  Century 
some  twenty  cathedrals  were  erected  in  various  parts  of  the 
country.  Most  of  these  were  built  in  what  we  would  now  call 
small  towns,  indeed  some  of  them  would  be  considered  scarcely 
more  than  villages.  There  were  no  large  cities,  in  praise  be  it 
spoken,  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  it  must  not  'be  for- 
gotten that  the  whole  population  of  England  at  the  beginning 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS    129 

of  the  century  was  scarcely  more  than  two  millions  of  people 
and  did  not  reach  three  millions  even  at  the  end  of  it.  Every 
rood  of  ground  did  not  perhaps  maintain  its  man,  but  every  part 
of  England  had  its  quota  of  population  so  that  there  could  not 
be  many  crowded  centers.  Even  London  probably  at  no  time 
during  the  century  had  more  than  twenty-five  thousand  inhabi- 
tants and  Oxford  during  the  palmiest  days  ot  the  University 
was  perhaps  the  most  populous  place  in  the  land. 

There  was  a  rivalry  in  the  building  of  Cathedrals,  and  as  the 
main  portion  of  the  buildings  were  erected  in  the  short  space  of 
a  single  century,  a  feeling  of  intense  competition  was  rife  so 
that  there  was  very  little  possibility  of  procuring  workmen  from 
other  towns.  Each  town  had  to  create  not  only  its  cathedral 
but  the  workmen  who  would  finish  it  in  all  its  details.  When 
we  consider  that  a  Cathedral  like  Salisbury  was  practically  com- 
pleted in  the  short  space  of  about  twenty-five  years,  it  becomes 
extremely  difficult  to  understand  just  how  this  little  town  suc- 
ceeded in  apparently  accomplishing  the  impossible.  It  has  often 
been  said  that  artists  cannot  be  obtained  merely  because  of  a 
demand  for  them  and  that  they  are  the  slow  creation  of  rather 
capricious  nature.  It  is  only  another  way  of  saying  that  the 
artist  is  born,  not  made.  Nature  then  must  have  been  in  a 
particularly  fruitful  mood  and  tense  during  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, for  there  is  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  wonderful  artistic  beauty 
of  the  details  of  these  Gothic  cathedrals.  While  nature's  benefi- 
cence meant  much,  however,  the  training  ot  the  century  prob- 
ably meant  even  more  and  the  special  form  of  popular  education 
which  developed  well  deserves  the  attention  of  all  other  genera- 
tions. 

It  may  be  said  at  once  that  education  in  our  sense  of  teach- 
ing everybody  to  read  and  write' there  was  none.  There  were 
iriore  students  at  the  universities  to  the  number  of  the  popula- 
tion than  in  the  Twentieth  Century  as  we  have  seen,  but  people 
who  were  not  to  devote  themselves  in  after  life  to  book  learn- 
ing, were  not  burdened  with  acquisitions  of  doubtful  benefit, 
which  might  provide  stores  of  useless  information  for  them,  or 
enable  them  to  while  away  hours  of  precious  time  reading  trash, 
or  make  them  conceited  with  the  thought  that  because  they  had 
absorbed  some  of  the  opinions  of  others  on  things  in  general, 


130  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

they  had  a  right  to  judge  of  most  things  under  the  sun  and  a 
few  other  things  besides.  The  circulation  of  our  newspapers 
and  the  records  of  the  books  in  demand  at  our  libraries,  show 
how  much  a  knowledge  of  reading  means  for  most  of  our  popu- 
lation. Popular  education  of  this  kind  may,  and  does  benefit  a 
few,  but  it  works  harm  to  a  great  many. 

Of  education  in  the  sense  of  training  the  faculties  so  that  the 
individual  might  express  whatever  was  in  him  and  especially 
that  he  might  bring  out  what  was  best  in  him,  there  was  much. 
Take  again  the  example  of  England.  There  was  considerably 
less  in  population  than  there  is  in  Greater  New  York  at  the 
present  time,  yet  there  was  some  twenty  places  altogether  in 
which  they  were  building  Cathedrals  during  this  century,  that 
would  be  monuments  of  artistic  impulse  and  accomplishment 
for  all  future  time.  Any  city  in  this  country  would  be  proud  to 
have  any  one  of  these  English  cathedrals  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury as  the  expression  of  its  taste  and  power  to  execute.  We 
have  tried  to  imitate  them  more  or  less  in  many  places.  In  or- 
der to  accomplish  our  purpose  in  this  matter,  though,  we  delibe- 
rately did  everything  on  a  much  smaller  and  less  ambitious 
scale  than  the  people  of  the  small  English  towns  of  seven  cen- 
turies ago,  and  our  results  do  not  bear  comparison  for  a  mo- 
ment with  theirs,  we  had  to  appeal  to  other  parts  of  the  country 
and  even  to  Europe  for  architects  and  designers,  and  even  had 
to  secure  the  finished  products  of  art  from  distant  places.  This 
too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  we  are  seven  centuries  later  and 
that  our  education  is  supposed  to  be  developed  to  a  high  extent. 
If  there  were  twenty  places  of  instruction  in  Greater  New  York 
where  architects  and  artist  workers  in  iron  and  glass,  and  metal 
of  all  kinds,  and  wood  and  stone,  were  being  trained  to  become 
such  finished  artisans  as  were  to  be  found  in  twenty  different 
little  towns  of  England  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  we  should 
be  sure  that  our  manual  training  schools  and  our  architectural 
departments  of  universities  and  schools  of  design  were  won- 
derfully successful. 

When  we  find  this  to  be  true  of  the  England  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  we  can  conclude  that  somehow  better  opportuni- 
ties for  art  education  must  have  been  supplied  in  those  times 
than  in  our  own,  and  though  we  do  not  find  the  mention  or 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS.  131 

records  of  formal  schools,  we  must  look  patiently  for  the  meth- 
ods of  instruction  that  enabled* these  generations  to  accomplish 
so  much.  Needless  to  say  such  attainments  do  not  come  spon- 
taneously in  a  large  number  of  people,  but  must  be  carefully 
fostered  and  are  the  result  of  that  greatest  factor*  in  education, 
environment.  It  will  not  be  hard  to  find  where  the  ambitious 
youth  of  England  even  of  the  workman  class  found  oppor- 
tunities for  technical  education  of  the  highest  character  in  these 
little  towns.  This  was  never  merely  theoretic,  though,  it  was 
sufficiently  grounded  in  principle  to  enable  men  to.  solve  prob- 
lems in  architecture  and  engineering,  in  decoration  and  artistic 
arrangement,  such  as  are  still  sources  of  anxiety  for  modern 
students  of  these  questions. 

To  take  but  a  single  example,  it  will  be  readily  appreciated 
that  the  consideration  of  the  guilds  of  builders  of  the  Cathe- 
drals as  constituting  a  great  technical  school,  is  marvelously  em- 
phasized by  certain  recent  observations  with  regard  to  archi- 
tects' and  builders'  methods  in  the  Cathedrals.  There  is  a  pas- 
sage in  Evelyn's  Diary  in  which  he  describes  certain  correc- 
tions that  were  introduced  into  Old  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  Lon- 
don (the  Gothic  edifice  predecessor  of  the  present  classical 
structure),  in  order  to  remove  appearances  of  dissymmetry  and 
certain  seeming  mistakes  of  construction.  This  passage  was 
always  so  misunderstood  that  editors  usually  considered  it  to  be 
defective  in  some  way  and  as  the  classical  critics  always  fall 
back  on  an  imperfect  text  for  insoluble  difficulties,  so  somehow 
Evelyn  was  considered  as  either  not  having  understood  what  he 
intended  to  say,  or  else  the  printer  failed  to  put  in  all  the  words 
that  he  wrote.  It  was  the  modern  readers,  however,  not  Evelyn 
nor  his  printer  who  were  mistaken.  Mr.  Goodyear  of  the 
Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts  and  Sciences  has  proved  by  a  series 
of  photographs  and  carefully  made  observations,  that  many  of 
the  old  Gothic  Cathedrals  have  incorporated  into  them  by  their 
builders,  optical  corrections  which  correspond  to  those  made  by 
the  Greeks  in  their  building  in  the  classical  period,  which  have 
been  the  subject  of  so  much  admiration  to  the  moderns. 

The  medieval  architects  and  builders  knew  nothing  of  these 
classical  architectural  refinements.  They  learned  for  them- 
selves by  actual  experience  the  necessity  for  making  such  optical 


132  GREA  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

corrections  and  then  introduced  them  so  carefully,  that  it  is  not 
until  the  last  decade  or  so  that  their  presence  has  been  realized. 
It  is  only  by  an  educational  tradition  of  the  greatest  value  that 
the  use  of  such  a  refinement  could  become  as  general  as  Pro- 
fessor Goodyear  has  found  it  to  be.  Besides  the  practical  work 
then,  and  the  actual  exercise  of  craftsmanship  and  of  design 
which  the  apprentices  obtained  from  the  guild,  there  was  evi- 
dently a  body  of  very  definite  technical  information  con- 
veyed to  them,  or  at  least  to  certain  chosen  spirits  among 
them,  which  carried  on  precious  traditions  from  place  to  place, 
This  same  state  of  affairs  must  of  course  have  existed  with  re- 
gard to  stained  glass  work,  the  making  of  bells  and  especially 
the  finer  work  in  the  precious  metals.  Practical  metallurgy 
must  have  been  studied  quite  as  faithfully  as  in  any  modern 
technical  school,  at  least  so  far  as  its  practical  purposes  and  ap- 
plication were  concerned.  Here  we  have  the  secret  of  the  tech- 
nical schools  revealed. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  to  study  the  details  of  the  very 
practical  organization  by  which  this  great  educational  move- 
ment in  the  arts  and  crafts  was  brought  about.  It  was  due  en- 
tirely to  the  trades'  and  merchants'  guilds  of  the  time.  In  the 
cathedral  towns  the  trades'  guilds  preponderated  in  influence. 
There  gathered  around  each  of  these  cathedrals  during  the 
years  when  work  was  most  active,  numbers  of  workmen  en- 
gaged at  various  occupations  requiring  mechanical  skill  and 
long  practice  at  their  trade.  These  workmen  were  all  affiliated 
with  one  another  and  they  were  gradually  organized  into  trades' 
unions  that  had  a  certain  independent  existence.  There  was  the 
guild  of  the  stone  workers ;  the  guild  of  the  metal  workers — in 
some  places  divided  into  a  guild  of  iron  workers  and  a  guild  of 
gold  workers,  or  workers  in  precious  metals;  there  was  the 
guild  of  the  wood  workers  and  then  of  the  various  other  forms 
of  occupation  connected  with  the  supplying  of  finished  or  un- 
finished materials  for  the  cathedral.  In  association  with  these 
were  established  guilds  of  tailors,  bakers,  butchers,  all  affiliated 
in  a  merchants'  guild  which  maintained  the  rights  of  its  mem- 
bers as  well  as  the  artisans'  guilds.  Some  idea  of  the  number 
and  variety  of  these  can  be  obtained  from  the  list  given  in  the 
chapter  on  the  Origin  of  the  Drama. 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS.  133 

These  were  the  workmen  who  not  only  accomplished  such 
brilliant  results  in  art  work,  but  also  succeeded  in  training  other 
workmen  so  admirably  for  every  line  of  artistic  endeavor. 

It  is  somewhat  difficult  to  understand  just  how  a  village  car- 
penter did  wood-carving  of  so  exquisite  a  design  and  such  ar- 
tistic finish  of  detail  that  it  has  remained  a  subject  of  admiration 
for  centuries.  It  is  quite  as  difficult  to  understand  how  one 
of  the  village  blacksmiths  of  the  time  made  a  handsome  gate, 
that  has  been  the  constant  admiration  of  posterity  ever  since, 
or  designed  huge  hinges  for  doors  that  artists  delight  to  copy, 
or  locks  and  latches  and  bolts  that  are  transported  to  our 
museums  to  be  looked  at  with  interest,  not  only  because  they 
are  antiques,  but  for  the  wonderful  combination  of  the  beauti- 
ful and  the  useful  which  they  illustrate.  We  are  assured,  how- 
ever, by  the  Rev.  Augustus  Jessop,  that  he  has  seen  in  the 
archives  of  the  old  English  parishes,  some  of  the  receipts  for 
the  bills  of  these  village  workmen  for  the  making  of  these  beau- 
tiful specimens  of  arts  and  crafts.  (See  Appendix.) 

The  surprise  grows  greater  when  we  realize  that  these  beauti- 
ful objects  were  made  not  alone  in  one  place  or  even  in  a  few 
places,  but  in  nearly  every  town  of  any  size  in  England  and 
France  and  Italy  and  Germany  and  Spain  at  various  times 
during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  that  at  any  time  a  town  of 
considerably  less  than  ten  thousand  inhabitants  seemed  to  be 
able  to  obtain  among  its  own  inhabitants,  men  who  could  make 
such  works  of  art  not  as  copies  nor  in  servile  imitation  of 
others,  but  with  original  ideas  of  their  own,  and  make  them  in 
such  perfection  that  in  many  cases  they  have  remained  the  mod- 
els for  future  workmen  for  many  centuries.  Even  the^bells  for 
the  cathedrals  seem  to  have  keen  cast  in  practically  all  cases  in 
trie  little  town  in  which  they  were  to  be  used.  It  may  be  added 
that  these  bells  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  represent  the  highest 
advances  jn  bell  making  that  have  ever  been  attained  and  that 
their  form  and  composition  have  simply  been  imitated  over  and 
over  again  since  that  time.  Even  the  finer  precious  metal  work 
such  as  chalices  and  the  various  sacred  vessels  and  objects  used 
In  the  church  services,  were  not  obtained  from  a  distance  but 
were  made  at  home. 

An  article  that  appeared  a  few  years  ago  in  The  Craftsman 


134  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

(Syracuse,  N.  Y.),  a  magazine  published  in  the  interests  of  the 
Arts  and  Crafts  movement,  called  attention  to  how  much  more 
beautifully  the  Thirteenth  Century  workman  in  the  precious 
metals  accomplished  his  artistic  purpose  than  does  the  corre- 
sponding workman  of  the  present  day.  A  definite  comparison 
was  made  between  some  typical  chalices  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury and  some  prize  cups  which  were  made  without  regard  to 
cost,  as  rewards  for  yachting  and  other  competitions  in  the 
Twentieth  Century.  The  artist  workman  of  the  olden  time 
knew  how  to  combine  the  beautiful  with  the  useful,  to  use  deco- 
ration just  enough  not  to  offend  good  taste,  to  make  the  lines  of 
his  work  eminently  artistic  and  in  general  to  turn  out  a  fine 
work  of  art.  The  modern  prize  cup  is  usually  made  by  one  of 
the  large  firms  engaged  in  such  work  who  employ  special  de- 
signers for  the  purpose,  such  designs  ordinarily  passing 
through  the  trained  hands  of  a  series  of  critics  before  being 
accepted  and  only  after  this  are  turned  over  to  the  mod- 
ern skilled  workmen  to  be  executed  in  metal.  All  this  ought 
to  assure  the  more  artistic  results;  that  they  do  not  ac- 
cording to  the  writer  in  the  Craftsman,  demonstrates  how 
much  such  success  is  a  matter  of  men  and  of  individual  taste 
rather  than  of  method.  We  have  already  called  attention  to  the 
fact  that  in  needlework  and  in  other  arts  connected  with  the 
provision  of  church  ornaments  and  garments,  the  success  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  workers  was  quite  as  great.  The  Cope  of 
Ascoli  considered  by  experts  to  be  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
bits  of  needlework  ever  made  is  an  example  of  this.  Many 
other  examples  are  to  be  found  in  the  treasuries  of  churches 
and  monasteries,  in  spite  of  the  ravages  of  time  and  only  too  of- 
ten of  intolerant  and  unfortunate  destruction  by  so-called  re- 
formers, who  could  see  no  beauty  in  even  the  most  beautiful 
things  if  they  ran  counter  to  certain  of  their  religious  preju- 
dices. 

The  training  necessary  for  the  production  of  such  beautiful 
objects  of  handicraftsmanship  was  obtained  through  the  guilds 
themselves.  The  boy  in  the  small  town  who  thought  that  he 
had  a  liking  for  a  certain  trade  or  craft  was  received  as  an  ap- 
prentice in  it.  If  during  the  course  of  a  year  or  more  he  demon- 
strated his  aptness  for  his  chosen  craft,  he  was  allowed  to  con- 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS.  135 

tinue  his  labor  of  assisting  the  workmen  in  various  ways,  and 
indeed  very  early  in  the  history  of  the  guilds  was  bound  over 
to  some  particular  workman,  who  usually  supplied  him  with 
board  and  clothing,  though  with  no  other  remuneration  during 
his  years  of  apprenticeship.  After  four  or  five  years,  always, 
however,  with  the  understanding  that  he  had  shown  a  definite 
talent  for  his  chosen  trade,  he  was  accepted  among  the  workmen 
of  the  lowest  grade,  the  journeymen,  who  usually  went  travel- 
ing in  order  to  perfect  their  knowledge  of  the  various  methods 
by  which  their  craft  maintained  itself  and  the  standard  of  its 
workmanship  in  the  different  parts  of  the  country. 

During  these  three  years  of  "journeying"  a  striking  develop- 
ment was  likely  to  take  place  in  the  mind  of  the  ambitious 
young  workman.  His  wander jahre  came  just  at  the  most  sus- 
ceptible period,  sometime  betwen  17  and  25,  they  continued 
for  three  years  or  more,  and  the  young  workman  if  at  all  ambi- 
tious was  likely  to  see  many  men  and  methods  and  know  much 
of  the  cities  and  towns  of  his  country  before  he  returned  to  his 
native  place.  Sometimes  these  craft-wanderings  took  him  even 
into  France,  where  he  learned  methods  and  secrets  so  different 
to  those  at  home. 

After  these  years  if  he  wished  to  settle  down  in  his  native 
town  or  in  some  other,  having  brought  evidence  of  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  apprenticeship  and  then  of  his  years  as  a  jour- 
neyman, he  became  an  applicant  for  full  membership  in  the 
guild  to  which  his  years  of  training  had  been  devoted.    He  was 
not  admitted,  however,  until  he  had  presented  to  the  officials  of 
•  the  organization  a  piece  of  work  showing  his  skill.    This  might 
1  be  only  a  hinge,  or  a  lock  for  a  door,  but  on  the  other  hand  it 
might  be  a  design  for  an  important  window  or  a  delicate  piece 
of  wood  or  stone-carving.    If  it  was  considered  worthy  of  the 
\  standard  of  workmanship  of  the  guild  it  was  declared  to  be  a 
masterpiece.    This  is  where  the  fine  old  English  word  master- 
i   piece  comes  from.    The  workman  was  then  admitted  as  a  master 
'  /  workman  and  became  a  full  member  of  the  guild. 

This  membership  carried  with  it  a  number  of  other  rights  be- 
sides that  of  permission  to  work  as  a  master-workman  at  full 
wages  whenever  the  guild  was  employed.  Guilds  had  certain 
privileges  conferred  on  them  by  the  towns  in  which  they  lived, 


136  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

by  the  nobles  for  whom  they  worked  and  the  ecclesiastical  au- 
thorities on  whose  various  church  structures  they  were  em- 
ployed. At  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  at  least, 
feudal  ideas  prevailed  to  such  an  extent  that  no  one  was  sup- 
posed to  enjoy  any  rights  or  privileges  except  those  which  had 
been  conferred  on  him  by  some  authority.  Besides  the  work- 
men of  the  same  guild  were  bound  together  by  ties,  so  that  any 
injury  inflicted  on  one  of  them  was  considered  to  be  done  to 
the  whole  body.  When  human  rights  were  much  less  recog- 
nized than  has  come  to  be  the  case  since,  this  constituted  an  im- 
portant source  of  protection  against  many  forms  of  injury  and 
infringement  of  rights. 

Besides  the  privileges,  however,  the  guild  possessed  certain 
other  decided  advantages  which  made  membership  desirable, 
even  though  it  involved  the  fulfilment  of  certain  duties.  In  the 
various  towns  in  England,  after  the  introduction  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century  of  the  practice  of  having  mystery  plays  in 
the  various  towns,  the  guild  claimed  and  obtained  the  privilege 
\  of  giving  these  at  various  times  during  the  year.  The  guild  of 
the  goldsmiths  would  give  the  performance  of  one  portion  of 
the  Old  Testament;  the  guild  of  the  tailors  another;  the  guild 
of  the  butchers  and  so  on  for  each  of  the  trades  and  crafts  still 
another,  so  that  during  the  year  a  whole  cycle  of  the  mysteries 
of  the  Christian  religion  in  type  and  in  reality  were  exhibited 
to  the  people  of  each  region.  Almost  needless  to  say,  on  such 
festive  occasions,  for  the  plays  were  given  on  important  feast 
days,  the  people  from  the  countryside  flocked  in  to  see  them  and 
the  influence  was  widespread.  What  was  most  important,  how- 
ever, was  the  influence  on  those  who  took  part  in  the  plays,  of 
such  intimate  contact  for  a  prolonged  period  with  the  simplicity 
of  style,  the  sublimity  of  thought,  the  concentration  of  purpose 
and  the  effectiveness  of  expression  of  the  Scriptures  and  the 
Scripture  narratives  even  in  their  dramatized  form. 

The  fact  of  actually  taking  part  in  these  performances  meant 
ever  so  much  more  than  merely  viewing  them  as  an  outsider.  It 
is  doubtless  to  this  intimate  relationship  with  the  great  truths 
of  Christianity  that  the  profound  devotion  so  characteristic  of 
the  accomplishments  of  the  arts  and  crafts,  during  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  must  be  to  no  little  extent  attributed.  Their 


MADONNA  (CIMABUE.  FLORENCE) 


TECHNICAL  SCHOOLS,  ARTS,  AND  CRAFTS.  137 

beautiful  work  could  only  have  come  from  men  of  profoundest 
faith,  but  also  it  could  not  have  come  from  those  who  were  igno- 
rant of  the  basis  of  what  they  accepted  on  faith.  In  other 
words,  there  was  a  mental  training  with  regard  to  some  of  the 
sublimest  truths  of  life  and  its  significance,  the  creation  of  a 
Christian  philosophy  of  life,  that  made  the  workman  see  clearly 
the  great  truths  of  religion  and  so  be  able  to  illustrate  them  by 
his  handiwork.  Education  of  a  higher  order  than  this  has 
never  been  conceived  of,  and  the  very  lack  of  tedious  formality 
in  it  only  made  it  all  the  more  effectual  in  action. 

Other  duties  were  involved  in  membership  in  the  guild.  All 
the  members  were  bound  to  attend  church  services  regularly 
and  to  perform  what  is  known  as  their  religious  duties  at  pe- 
riodic intervals,  that  is,  the  rule  of  the  guild  required  them  to  go 
to  mass  on  Sundays  and  holy  days,  to  abstain  from  manual 
labor  on  such  days  unless  there  was  absolute  necessity  for  it 
and  to  go  to  confession  and  communion  several  times  a  year. 
Besides  they  were  bound  to  contribute  to  the  support  of  such  of 
their  fellow-members  as  were  sick  and  unable  to  work  or  as  had 
been  injured.  A  very  interesting  phase  of  this  duty  toward  sick 
•  members  existed  at  least  in  some  parts  of  the  country.  A  work- 
man was  supposed  to  pass  one  night  at  certain  intervals  on  his 
turn  in  helping  to  nurse  a  fellow-workman  who  was  seriously 
hurt  or  who  was  very  ill.  It  was  considered  that  the  family 
were  quite  worn  out  enough  with  the  care  of  the  sick  man  dur- 
ing the  day,  and  so  one  of  his  brother  guildsmen  came  to  relieve 
them  of  this  duty  at  night.  It  is  a  custom  that  is  still  main- 
tained in  certain  country  places  but  which  of  course  has  passed 
out  of  use  entirely  in  our  unsympathetic  city  life.  In  a  word, 
there  was  a  thorough  education  not  only  in  the  life  work  that 
made  for  wages  and  family  support,  but  also  in  those  precious 
social  duties  that  make  for  happiness  and  contentment  in  life. 


138  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

VIII 
GREAT  ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING.* 


At  the  commencement  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  the  move- 
ment of  emancipation  in  every  phase  of  thought  and  life  in 
Italy  went  on  apace  with  an  extraordinary  ardor.  After  a  very 
serious  struggle  the  Italian  republics  were  on  the  point  of  forc- 
ing the  German  Empire  to  recognize  them.  Everywhere  in  the 
first  enthusiasm  of  their  independence  which  had  been  achieved 
by  valiant  deeds  and  aspirations  after  liberty  as  lofty  as  any  in 
modern  times,  the  cities,  though  united  in  confederations  they 
were  acting  as  independent  rivals,  brought  to  all  enterprises,  lay 
or  religious  foundations,  commercial  or  educational  institutions, 
a  wonderful  youthful  activity  and  enterprise.  The  papacy  al- 
lied with  them  favored  this  movement  in  its  political  as  well  as 
its  educational  aspects  and  strengthened  the  art  movement  of 
the  time.  Christianity  under  their  guidance,  by  the  powerful 
religious  exhaltation  which  it  inspired  in  the  hearts  of  all  men, 
became  a  potent  factor  in  all  forms  of  art.  From  Pope  Innocent 
III  to  Boniface  VIII  probably  no  other  series  of  Popes  have 
been  so  misunderstood  and  so  misrepresented  by  subsequent 
generations,  as  certainly  the  Popes  of  no  other  century  did  so 
much  to  awaken  the  enthusiasm  of  Christians  for  all  modes  of 
religious  development,  and  be  it  said  though  credit  for  this  is 

*  Most  of  this  chapter  is  taken  from  the  work  on  Italian  painting  (La 
Peinture  Italienne  depuis  les  origines  jusqu'a  la  fin  du  xv  Siecle,  par 
Georges  Lafenestre,  Paris  Ancienne  Maison  Quantin  Libraries -Imprime- 
ries  Reunies,  May  &  Motteroz,  Directeurs,  rue  Saint -Benoit.  Nou- 
velle  Bdition) ,  which  forms  one  of  the  series  of  text  books  for  instruc- 
tion in  art  at  I/'Kcole  Des  Beaux- Arts — the  famous  French  Government 
Art  School  in  Paris.  It  may  be  said  that  this  collection  of  art  manuals  is 
recognized  as  an  authority  on  all  matters  treated  of ,  having  been  crowned 
by  the  Academic  Des  Beaux- Arts  with  the  prize  Bordin.  There  is  no 
better  source  of  information  with  regard  to  the  development  of  the  arts 
and  none  which  can  be  more  readily  consulted  nor  with  more  assurance 
as  to  the  facts  and  opinions  exposed. 


ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING.  139 

only  too  often  refused  them,  also  for  educational,  charitable 
and  social  betterment. 

The  two  great  church  institutions  of  the  time  that  were  des- 
tined to  act  upon  the  people  more  than  any  others  were  the 
Franciscan  and  Dominican  orders — the  preachers  and  the  friars 
minor,  who  were  within  a  short  time  after  their  formation  to 
have  such  deep  and  widespread  influence  on  all  strata  of  society. 
Both  of  these  orders  from  their  very  birth  showed  themselves 
not  only  ready  but  anxious  to  employ  the  arts  as  a  means  of 
religious  education  and  for  the  encouragement  of  piety.  Their 
position  in  this  matter  had  an  enormous  influence  on  art  and  on 
the  painters  of  the  time.  The  Dominicans,  as  became  their  more 
ambitious  intellectual  training  and  their  purpose  as  preachers 
of  the  word,  demanded  encyclopedic  and  learned  compositions ; 
the  Franciscans  asked  for  loving  familiar  scenes  such  as  would 
touch  the  hearts  of  the  common  people.  Both  aided  greatly  in 
helping  the  artist  to  break  away  from  the  old  fashioned  forma- 
lism which  was  no  longer  sufficient  to  satisfy  the  new  ardors  of 
men's  souls.  In  this  way  they  prepared  the  Italian  imagination 
for  the  double  revolution  which  was  to  come. 

It  was  the  great  body  of  legends  which  grew  up  about  St. 
Francis  particularly,  all  of  them  bound  up  with  supreme  charity 
for  one's  neighbor,  with  love  for  all  living  creatures  even  the 
lowliest,  with  the  tenderest  feelings  for  every  aspect  of  external 
nature,  which  appealed  to  the  painters  as  a  veritable  light  in  the 
darkness  of  the  times.  It  was  especially  in  the  churches  foun- 
ded by  the  disciples  of  "the  poor  little  man  of  Assisi,"  that  the 
world  saw  burst  forth  before  the  end  of  the  century,  the  first 
grand  flowers  of  that  renewal  of  art  which  was  to  prove  the  be- 
ginning of  modern  art  history.  It  is  hard  to  understand  what 
would  have  happened  to  the  painters  of  the  time  without  the 
spirit  that  was  brought  into  the  world  by  St.  Francis'  beauti- 
fully simple  love  for  all  and  every  phase  of  nature  around  him. 
This  it  was  above  all  that  encouraged  the  return  to  nature  that 
soon  supplanted  Oriental  formalism.  It  was  but  due  compensa- 
tion that  the  greatest  works  of  the  early  modern  painters  should 
have  been  done  in  St.  Francis'  honor.  Besides  this  the  most 
important  factor  in  art  was  the  revival  of  the  thirst  for  knowl- 
edge, which  arose  among  the  more  intellectual  portions  of  the 


140  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

communities  and  developed  an  enthusiasm  for  antiquity  which 
was  only  a  little  later  to  become  a  veritable  passion. 

The  most  important  phase  of  Italian  art  during  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  is  that  which  developed  at  Florence.  It  is  with 
this  that  the  world  is  most  familiar.  It  began  with  Cimabue, 
who  commenced  painter,  in  the  quaint  old  English  phrase,  not 
long  before  the  middle  of  the  century  and  whose  great  work 
occupies  the  second  half  of  it.  There  are  not  wanting  some  in- 
teresting traditions  of  certain  other  Florentine  painters  before 
his  time  as  Marchisello,  of  the  early  part  of  the  century,  Lapo 
who  painted,  in  1261,  the  facade  of  the  Cathedral  at  Pistoia,  and 
Fino  di  Tibaldi  who  painted  a  vast  picture  on  the  walls  of  the 
Municipal  Palace  about  the  middle  of  the  century,  but  they  are 
so  much  in  the  shadow  of  the  later  masters'  work  as  to  be 
scarcely  known.  Everywhere  Nature  began  to  reassert  herself. 
The  workers  in  Mosaic  even,  who  were  occupied  in  the  famous 
baptistry  at  Florence  about  the  middle  of  the  century,  though 
they  followed  the  Byzantine  rules  of  their  art,  introduced  cer- 
tain innovations  which  brought  the  composition  and  the  sub- 
jects closer  to  nature.  These  are  enough  to  show  that  there  was 
a  school  of  painting  and  decoration  at  Florence  quite  sufficient 
to  account  for  Cimabue's  development,  without  the  necessity  of 
appealing  to  the  influence  over  him  of  wandering  Greek  artists 
as  has  sometimes  been  done. 

Though  he  was  not  the  absolute  inventor  of  all  the  new  art 
modes  as  he  is  sometimes  supposed  to  be,  Cimabue  was  un- 
doubtedly a  great  original  genius.  Like  so  many  others  who 
have  been  acclaimed  as  the  very  first  in  a  particular  line  of 
thought  or  effort,  his  was  only  the  culminating  intelligence 
which  grasped  all  that  had  been  done  before,  assimilated  it  and 
made  it  his  own.  As  a  distinct  exception  to  the  usual  history  of 
such  great  initiators,  this  father  of  Italian  painting  was  rich, 
born  of  a  noble  family,  but  of  a  character  that  was  eager  for 
work  and  with  ambition  to  succeed  in  his  chosen  art  as  the 
mainspring  of  life.  At  his  death,  as  the  result  of  his  influence, 
artists  had  acquired  a  much  better  social  position  than  had 
been  theirs  before,  and  one  that  it  was  comparatively  easy  for 
his  successors  to  maintain.  His  famous  Madonna  which  was 
subsequently  borne  in  triumph  from  his  studio  to  the  Church  of 


ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING.  141 

Santa  Maria  Novella,  placed  the  seal  of  popular  approval  on 
the  new  art,  and  the  enthusiasm  it  evoked  raised  ^the 
artist  for  all  time  from  the  plane  of  a  mere  worker  in  colors 
to  that  of  a  member  of  a  liberal  profession.  Even  before 
this  triumph  his  great  picture  had  been  deemed  worthy  of 
a  visit  by  Charles  of  Anjou,  the  French  King,  who  was  on  a 
visit  to  Florence,  and  according  to  tradition  ever  afterwards 
the  portion  of  the  city  in  which  it  had  been  painted  and  through 
which  it  was  carried  in  procession,  bore  by  reason  of  these 
happy  events  the  name  Borgo  Allegri — Ward  of  Joy. 

This  picture  is  still  in  its  place  in  the  Rucellai  chapel  and  is 
of  course  the  subject  of  devoted  attention  on  the  part  of  visi- 
tors. Lafenestre  says  of  it,  that  this  monument  of  Florentine  art 
quite  justifies  the  enthusiasm  of  contemporaries  if  we  com- 
pare it  with  the  expressionless  Madonnas  that  preceded  it. 
There  is  an  air  of  beneficent  dignity  on  the  features  quite  un- 
like the  rigidity  of  preceding  art,  and  there  is  besides  an  at- 
tractive suppleness  about  the  attitude  of  the  body  which  is  far 
better  proportioned  than  those  of  its  predecessors.  Above  all 
there  is  a  certain  roseate  freshness  about  the  colors  of  the  flesh 
which  are  pleasant  substitutes  for  the  pale  and  greenish  tints  of 
the  Byzantines.  It  did  not  require  more  than  this  to  exalt  the 
imaginations  of  the  people  delivered  from  their  old-time  con- 
ventional painting.  It  was  only  a  ray  of  the  dawn  after  a  dark 
night,  but  it  announced  a  glorious  sunrise  of  art  and  the  con- 
fident anticipations  of  the  wondrous  day  to  come,  aroused  the 
depths  of  feeling  in  the  peoples'  hearts.  Life  and  nature  went 
back  into  art  once  more ;  no  wonder  their  re-apparition  was 
saluted  with  so  much  delight. 

Two  other  Madonnas  painted  by  him,  one  at  Florence  in  the 
Academy,  the  other  in  Paris  in  the  Louvre,  besides  his  great 
Mosaic  in  the  apse  of  the  Cathedral  at  Pisa,  serve  to  show  with 
what  prudence  Cimabue  introduced  naturalistic  qualities  into 
art,  while  always  respecting  the  tradition  of  the  older  art  and 
preserving  the  solemn  graces  and  the  majestic  style  of  monu- 
mental painting.  The  old  frescoes  of  the  upper  church  at 
Assisi  which  represent  episodes  in  the  life  of  St.  Francis  have 
also  been  attributed  to  Cimabue,  but  evidently  were  done  by  a 
number  of  artists  probably  under  his  direction.  It  is  easy  to 


142  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

see  from  them  what  an  important  role  the  Florentine  artist 
played  in  directing  the  gropings  of  his  assistant  artists. 

After  Cimabue  the  most  important  name  at  Florentine  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  is  that  of  his  friend,  Gaddo  Gaddi,  whose 
years  of  life  correspond  almost  exactly  with  those  of  his  great 
contemporary.  His  famous  Coronation  of  the  Virgin  at  Santa 
Maria  de  Fiore  in  Florence  shows  that  he  was  greatly  influ- 
enced by  the  new  ideas  that  had  come  into  art.  Greater  than 
either  of  these  well-known  predecessors,  however,  was  Giotto 
the  friend  of  Dante,  whose  work  is  still  considered  worthy  of 
study  by  artists  because  of  certain  qualities  in  which  it  never 
has  been  surpassed  nor  quite  outgrown.  From  Giotto,  however, 
we  shall  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  say  something  of  the  devel- 
opment of  art  in  other  cities  of  Italy,  for  it  must  not  be  thought 
that  Florence  was  the  only  one  to  take  up  the  new  art  methods 
which  developed  so  marvelously  during  the  Thirteenth  Century. 

Even  before  the  phenomenal  rise  of  modern  art  in  Florence, 
at  Pisa,  at  Lucca  and  especially  at  Siena,  the  new  wind  of  the 
spirit  was  felt  blowing  and  some  fine  inspirations  were  realized 
m  spite  of  hampering  difficulties  of  all  kinds.  The  Madonna  of 
Guido  in  the  Church  of  St.  Dominic  at  Siena  is  the  proof  of  his 
emancipation.  Besides  him  Ugolino,  Segna  and  Duccio  make 
up  the  Siena  school  and  enable  this  other  Tuscan  city  to  dispute 
even  with  Florence  the  priority  of  the  new  influence  in  art.  At 
Lucca  Bonaventure  Berlinghieri  flourished  and  there  is  a  fa- 
mous St.  Francis  by  him  only  recently  found,  which  proves  his 
right  to  a  place  among  the  great  founders  of  modern  art. 
Giunta  of  Pisa  was  one  of  those  called  to  Assisi  to  paint  some  of 
the  frescoes  in  the  upper  church.  He  is  noted  as  having  striven 
to  make  his  figures  more  exact  and  his  colors  more  natural.  He 
did  much  to  help  his  generation  away  from  the  conventional  ex- 
pressions of  the  preceding  time  and  he  must  for  this  reason  be 
counted  among  the  great  original  geniuses  in  the  history  of  art. 
>.  The  greatest  name  in  the  art  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  of 
course  that  of  Giotto.  What  Dante  did  for  poetry  and  Villani 
for  history,  their  compatriot  and  friend  did  for  painting.  Am- 
brogio  de  Bondone  familiarly  called  Ambrogiotto  (and  with  the 
abbreviating  habit  that  the  Italians  have  always  had  for  the 
names  of  all  those  of  whom  they  thought  much  shortened  to 


ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING.  143 

Giotto,  as  indeed  Dante's  name  had  been  shortened  from  Du- 
rante)  was  born  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  According  to  a  well-known  legend  he  was 
guarding  the  sheep  of  his  father  one  day  and  passing  his  time 
sketching  a  lamb  upon  a  smooth  stone  with  a  soft  pebble  when 
Cimabue  happened  to  be  passing.  The  painter  struck  by  the 
signs  of  genius  in  the  work  took  the  boy  with  him  to  Florence, 
where  he  made  rapid  progress  in  art  and  soon  surpassed  even 
his  master.  The  wonderful  precocity  of  his  genius  may  be  best 
realized  from  the  fact  that  at  the  age  of  twenty  he  was  given 
the  commission  of  finishing  the  decorations  of  the  upper  Church 
at  Assisi,  and  in  fulfilling  it  broke  so  completely  with  the 
Byzantine  formalism  of  the  preceding  millenium,  that  he  must 
be  considered  the  liberator  of  art  and  its  deliverer  from  the 
chains  of  conventionalism  into  the  freedom  of  nature. 

It  is  no  wonder  that  critics  and  literary  men  have  been  so 
unstinted  in  his  praise.  Here  is  an  example : 

"In  the  Decamerone  it  is  said  of  him  'that  he  was  so  great  a 
genius  that  there  was  nothing  in  nature  he  had  not  so  repro- 
duced that  it  was  not  only  like  the  thing,  but  seemed  to  be  the 
thing  itself/  Eulogies  of  this  tenor  on  works  of  art  are,  it  is 
quite  true,  common  to  all  periods  alike,  to  the  most  accomp- 
lished of  classical  antiquity  as  well  as  to  the  most  primitive  of 
the  Middle  Age ;  and  they  must  only  be  accepted  relatively,  ac- 
cording to  the  notion  entertained  by  each  period  of  what  con- 
stitutes truth  and  naturalness.  And  from  the  point  of  view  of 
his  age,  Giotto's  advance  towards  nature,  considered  relatively 
to  his  predecessors,  was  in  truth  enormous.  What  he  sought 
was  not  merely  the  external  truth  of  sense,  but  also  the  inward 
truth  of  the  spirit.  Instead  of  solemn  images  of  devotion,  he 
painted  pictures  in  which  the  spectator  beheld  the  likeness  of 
human  beings  in  the  exercise  of  activity  and  intelligence.  His 
merit  lies,  as  has  been  well  said,  in  'an  entirely  new  conception 
of  character  and  facts.'  ' 

*  History  of  Ancient,  Early  Christian  and  Medieval  Painting  from 
the  German  of  the  late  Dr.  Alfred  Woltmann,  Professor  at  the  Imper- 
ial University  of  Strasburg,  and  Karl  Woertmann,  Professor  at  the 
Royal  Academy  of  Arts,  Dusselford.  Edited  by  Sidney  Colvin,  M.  A., 
Dodd,  Mead  &  Co.,  N.  Y.,  1894. 


144  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Lafenestre,  in  his  history  of  Italian  painting  for  the  Beaux- 
Arts  of  Paris  already  referred  to,  say^  that  what  has  survived 
of  Giotto's  work  justifies  the  enthusiasm  of  his  contemporaries. 
None  of  his  predecessors  accomplished  anything  like  the  revolu- 
tion that  he  worked.  He  fixed  the  destinies  of  art  in  Italy  at  the 
moment  when  Dante  fixed  those  of  literature.  The  stiff,  con- 
fused figures  of  the  mosaics  and  manuscripts  grew  supple  un- 
der his  fingers  and  the  confusion  disappeared.  He  simplified 
the  gestures,  varied  the  expression,  rectified  the  proportions. 
Perhaps  the  best  example  of  his  work  is  that  of  the  Upper 
Church  of  Assisi,  all  accomplished  before  he  was  thirty.  What 
he  had  to  represent  were  scenes  of  life  almost  contemporary 
yet  already  raised  to  the  realm  of  poetry  by  popular  admiration. 
He  interpreted  the  beautiful  legend  of  the  life  of  the  Saint  pre- 
served by  St.  Bonaventure,  and  like  the  subject  of  his  sketches 
turned  to  nature  at  every  step  of  his  work.  If  his  figures  are 
compared  with  those  of  the  artists  of  the  preceding  generations, 
their  truth  to  life  and  natural  expressions  easily  explain  the 
surprise  and  rapture  of  his  contemporaries. 

Beautiful  as  are  the  pictures  of  the  Upper  Church,  however, 
ten  years  after  their  completion  Giotto's  genius  can  be  seen  to 
have  taken  a  still  higher  flight  by  the  study  of  the  pictures  on 
the  vast  ceilings  of  the  Lower-  Church.  The  four  compartments 
contain  the  Triumph  of  Chastity,  the  Triumph  of  Poverty, 
the  Triumph  of  Obedience,  and  the  Glorification  of  St.  Francis. 
The  ideal  and  the  real  figures  in  these  compositions  are  mingled 
and  grouped  with  admirable  clearness  and  inventive  force. 
To  be  appreciated  properly  they  must  be  seen  and  studied  in 
situ.  Many  an  artist  has  made  the  pilgrimage  to  Assisi  and 
none  has  come  away  disappointed.  Never  before  had  an  artist 
dared  to  introduce  so  many  and  such  numerous  figures,  yet  all 
were  done  with  a  variety  and  an  ease  of  movement  that  is  emi- 
nently pleasing  and  even  now  are  thoroughly  satisfying  to  the 
artistic  mind.  After  his  work  at  Assisi  some  of  the  best  of 
Giotto's  pictures  are  to  be  found  in  the  Chapel  of  the  Arena  at 
Padua.  Here  there  was  a  magnificent  opportunity  and  Giotto 
took  full  advantage  of  it.  The  whole  story  of  Christ's  life  is 
told  in  the  fourteen  episodes  of  the  life  of  his  Mother  which 
were  painted  here  by  Giotto.  For  their  sake  Padua  as  well  as 


ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING.  145 

Assisi  has  been  a  favorite  place  of  pilgrimage  for  artists  ever 
since  and  never  more  so  than  in  our  own  time. 

No  greater  tribute  to  the  century  in  which  he  lived  could 
possibly  be  given  than  to  say  that  his  genius  was  recognized  at 
once,  and  he  was  sought  from  one  end  of  Italy  to  another  by 
Popes  and  Kings,  Republics  and  Princes,  Convents  and  Muni- 
cipalities, all  of  which  competed  for  the  privilege  of  having  this 
genius  work  for  them  with  ever  increasing  enthusiasm.  It  is 
easy  to  think  and  to  say  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  such  a  trans- 
cendent genius  was  recognized  and  appreciated  and  received 
his  due  reward.  Such  has  not  usually  been  the  case  in  history, 
however.  On  the  contrary,  the  more  imposing  the  genius  of  an 
artist,  or  a  scientist,  or  any  other  great  innovator  in  things  hu- 
man, the  more  surely  has  he  been  the  subject  of  neglect  and 
even  of  misunderstanding  and  persecution.  The  very  fact  that 
Giotto  lifted  art  out  of  the  routine  of  formalism  in  which  it  was 
sunk  might  seem  to  be  enough  to  assure  failure  of  appreciation. 
Men  do  not  suddenly  turn  round  to  like  even  great  innovations, 
when  they  have  long  been  satisfied  with  something  less  and 
when  their  principles  of  criticism  have  been  formed  by  their 
experience  with  the  old. 

We  need  not  go  farther  back  than  our  own  supposedly  il- 
luminated Nineteenth  Century  to  find  some  striking  examples  of 
this.  Turner,  the  great  English  landscapist,  failed  of  apprecia- 
tion for  long  years  and  had  to  wait  till  the  end  of  his  life  to 
obtain  even  a  small  meed  of  reward.  The  famous  Barbizon 
School  of  French  Painters  is  a  still  more  striking  example. 
They  went  back  to  nature  from  the  classic  formalism  of  the 
early  Nineteenth  Century  painters  just  as  Giotto  went  back  to 
nature  from  Byzantine  conventionalism.  The  immediate  re- 
wards in  the  two  cases  were  very  different  and  the  attitude  of 
contemporaries  strikingly  contrasted.  Poor  Millet  did  his  mag- 
nificent work  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  his  family  nearly  starved. 
Only  that  Madame  Millet  was  satisfied  to  take  more  than  a  fair 
share  of  hardships  for  herself  and  the  family  in  order  that  her 
husband  might  have  the  opportunity  to  develop  his  genius 
after  his  own  way,  we  might  not  have  had  the  magnificent  pic- 
tures which  Millet  sold  for  a  few  paltry  francs  that  barely  kept 


146  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  wolf  from  the  door,  and  for  which  the  next  generation  has 
been  paying  almost  fabulous  sums. 

All  through  the  Thirteenth  Century  this  characteristic  will 
be  found  that  genius  did  not  as  a  rule  lack  appreciation.  The 
greater  the  revolution  a  genuinely  progressive  thinker  and 
worker  tried  to  accomplish  in  human  progress,  the  more  sure 
was  he  to  obtain  not  only  a  ready  audience,  but  an  enthusiastic 
and  encouraging  following.  This  is  the  greatest  compliment 
that  could  be  paid  to  the  enlightenment  of  the  age.  Men's  minds 
were  open  and  they  were  ready  and  willing  to  see  things  differ- 
ently from  what  they  had  been  accustomed  to  before.  This  con- 
stitutes after  all  the  best  possible  guarantee  of  progress.  It  is, 
however,  very  probably  the  last  thing  that  we  would  think  of 
attributing  to  these  generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  who 
are  usually  said  very  frankly  to  have  been  wrapped  up  in  their 
own  notions,  to  have  been  only  too  ready  to  accept  things  on 
authority  rather  than  by  their  own  powers  of  observation  and 
judgment,  and  to  have  been  clingers  to  the  past  rather  than 
lookers  to  the  present  and  the  future.  Giotto's  life  shows  better 
than  any  other  how  much  this  prejudiced  view  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  and  perforce  of  the  Middle  Age  needs  to  be 
corrected. 

During  forty  years  Giotto  responded  to  every  demand, 
and  made  himself  suffice  for  every  call,  worked  in  nearly  every 
important  city  of  Italy,  enkindling  everywhere  he  went  the  new 
light  of  art.  Before  the  end  of  the  century  he  completed  a  car- 
toon for  the  famous  picture  of  the  Boat  of  Peter  which  was  to 
adorn  the  Facade  of  St.  Peter's.  He  was  in  Rome  in  1300,  the 
first  jubilee  year,  arranging  the  decorations  at  St.  John  Lateran. 
The  next  year  he  was  at  Florence,  working  in  the  Palace  of 
the  Podesta.  And  so  it  went  for  full  two  score  years.  He  was 
at  Pisa,  at  Lucca,  at  Arezzo,  at  Padua,  at  Milan,  then  he  went 
South  to  Urbino,  to  Rome  and  then  even  to  Naples.  Unfortu- 
nately the  strain  of  all  this  work  proved  too  much  for  him  and 
he  was  carried  away  at  the  comparatively  early  age  of  sixty 
in  the  midst  of  his  artistic  vigor  and  glory. 

The  art  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  especially  at  the  time  of  the 
beginnings  of  modern  art  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  is  com- 
monly supposed  to  be  inextricably  bound  up  with  certain  in- 


0. 


ESPOUSAL  OF    ST.   CATHERINE    (GAL)DI.    PUPIL   OF  XIII   CENTURA) 


ORIGINS  IN  PAINTING.  147 

fluences  which  place  it  beyond  the  pale  of  imitation  for  mod- 
ern life.  It  has  frequently  been  said,  that  this  art  besides  being 
too  deeply  mystical  and  pietistic,  is  so  remote  from  ordinary 
human  feelings  as  to  preclude  a  proper  understanding  of  it  by 
the  men  of  our  time  and  certainly  prevent  any  deep  sympathy. 
The  pagan  element  in  art  which  entered  at  the  time  of  the  Re- 
naissance and  which  emphasized  the  joy  of  life  itself  and  the 
pleasure  of  mere  living  for  its  own  sake,  is  supposed  to  have 
modified  this  sadder  aspect  of  things  in  the  earlier  art,  so  that 
now  no  one  would  care  to  go  back  to  the  pre-Renaissance 
day.  There  has  been  so  much  writing  of  this  kind  that  has 
carried  weight,  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  the  impression  has 
been  deeply  made.  It  is  founded  almost  entirely  on  a  misunder- 
standing, however.  Reinach  whom  we  have  quoted  before  com- 
pletely overturns  this  false  notion  in  some  paragraphs  which 
bring  out  better  than  any  others  that  we  know  something  of  the 
true  significance  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  art  in  this  particular. 

Those  who  think  that  Gothic  art  was  mainly  gloomy  in  char- 
acter, or  if  not  absolutely  sad  at  heart  that  it  always  expressed 
the  sadder  portion  of  religious  feelings,  who  consider  that  the 
ascetic  side  of  life  was  always  in  the  ascendant  and  the  brighter 
side  of  things  seldom  chosen,  for  pictorial  purposes,  should  re- 
call that  the  Gothic  Cathedrals  themselves  are  the  most  cheery 
and  lightsome  buildings,  that  indeed  they  owe  their  character  as 
creations  of  a  new  idea  in  architecture  to  the  determined  pur- 
pose of  their  builders  to  get  admission  for  all  possible  light  in 
the  dreary  Northern  climates.  The  contradiction  of  the  idea 
that  Gothic  art  in  its  essence  was  gloomy  will  at  once  be  mani- 
fest from  this.  Quite  apart  from  this,  however,  if  Gothic  art  be 
studied  for  itself  and  in  its  subjects,  that  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury particularly  will  be  found  far  distant  from  anything  that 
would  justify  the  criticism  of  over  sadness.  Reinach  (in  his 
Story  of  Art  Throughout  the  Middle  Ages)  has  stated  this  so 
clearly  that  we  prefer  simply  to  quote  the  passage  which  is  at 
once  authoritative  and  informing : 

"It  has  also  been  said  that  Gothic  art  bears  the  impress  of 
ardent  piety  and  emotional  mysticism,  that  it  dwells  on  the  suf- 
fering of  Jesus,  of  the  Virgin,  and  of  the  martyrs  with  harrow- 
ing persistency.  Those  who  believe  this  have  never  studied 


148 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


Gothic  art.  It  is  so  far  from  the  truth  that,  as  a  fact,  the  Gothic 
art  of  the  best  period,  the  Thirteenth  Century,  never  repre- 
sented any  sufferings  save  those  of  the  damned.  The  Virgins 
are  smiling  and  gracious,  never  grief  stricken.  There  is  not  a 
single  Gothic  rendering  of  the  Virgin  weeping  at  the  foot  of 
the  cross.  The  words  and  music  of  the  Stabat  Mater,  which 
«re  sometimes  instanced  as  the  highest  expression  of  the  reli- 
gion of  the  Middle  Ages,  date  from  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  at  the  very  earliest,  and  did  not  become  popular  till 
the  Fifteenth  Century.  Jesus  himself  is  not  represented  as 
suffering,  but  with  a  serene  and  majestic  expression.  The  fa- 
mous statue  known  as  the  Beau  Dieu  d' Amiens  may  be  in- 
stanced as  typical." 


GROUP  FROM  THE  VISITATION 
(RHEIMS) 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  149 

IX 
LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN. 


As  the  Thirteenth  Century  begins  some  250  years  before  the 
art  of  printing  was  introduced,  it  would  seem  idle  to  talk  of 
libraries  and  especially  of  circulating  libraries  during  this  pe- 
riod and  quite  as  futile  to  talk  of  bookmen  and  book  collectors. 
Any  such  false  impression,  however,  is  founded  entirely  upon  a 
lack  of  knowledge  of  the  true  state  of  affairs  during  this  won- 
derful period.  A  diocesan  council  held  in  Paris  in  the  year 
1 2 12,  with  other  words  of  advice  to  religious,  recalled  to  them 
the  duty  that  they  had  to  lend  such  books  as  they  might  pos- 
sess, with  proper  guarantee  for  their  return,  of  course,  to  those 
who  might  make  good  use  of  them.  The  council,  indeed,  for- 
mally declared  that  the  lending  of  books  was  one  of  the  works 
of  mercy.  The  Cathedral  chapter  oi  Notre  Dame  at  Paris  was 
one  of  the  leaders  in  this  matter  and  there  are  records  of  their 
having  lent  many  books  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  At 
most  of  the  abbeys  around  Paris  there  were  considerable  li- 
braries and  in  them  also  the  lending  custom  obtained.  This 
is  especially  true  of  the  Abbey  of  St.  Victor  of  which  the  rule 
and  records  are  extant. 

Of  course  it  will  be  realized  that  the  number  of  books  was 
not  large,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
many  of  them  were  works  of  art  in  every  particular,  and  some 
of  them  that  have  come  down  to  us  continue  to  be  even  to  the 
present  day  among  the  most  precious  bibliophilic  treasures  of 
great  state  and  city  libraries.  Their  value  denends  not  alone  on 
their  antiquity  but  on  their  perfection  as  works  of  art.  In  gen- 
eral it  may  be  said  that  the  missals  and  office  books,  and  the 
prayer  books  made  for  royal  personages  and  the  nobility  at  this 
time,  are  yet  counted  among  the  best  examples  of  bookmaking 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  It  is  not  surprising  that  such  should 
be  the  case  since  these  books  were  mainly  meant  for  use  in  the 
Cathedrals  and  the  chapels,  and  these  edifices  were  so  beau- 
tiful in  every  detail  that  the  generations  that  erected  them 


150  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

could  not  think  of  making  books  for  use  in  them,  that  would 
be  unworthy  of  the  artistic  environment  for  which  they  were 
intended.  With  the  candlesticks,  the  vessels,  and  implements 
used  in  the  ceremonial  surpassing  works  of  art,  with  every  form 
of  decoration  so  nearly  perfect  as  to  be  a  source  of  unending 
admiration,  with  the  vestments  and  altar  linens  specimens  of 
the  most  exquisite  handiwork  of  their  kind  that  had  ever  been 
made,  the  books  associated  with  them  had  to  be  excellent  in 
execution,  expressive  of  the  most  refined  taste  and  finished  with 
an  attention  utterly  careless  of  the  time  and  labor  that  might  be 
required,  since  the  sole  object  was  to  make  everything  as  ab- 
solutely beautiful  as  possible.  Hence  there  is  no  dearth  of  won- 
derful examples  of  the  beautiful  bookmaking  of  this  century 
in  all  the  great  libraries  of  the  world. 

The  libraries  themselves,  moreover,  are  of  surpassing  inter- 
est because  of  their  rules  and  management,  for  little  as  it  might 
be  expected  this  wonderful  century  anticipated  in  these  matters 
most  of  our  very  modern  library  regulations.  The  bookmen  of 
the  time  not  only  made  beautiful  books,  but  they  made  every 
provision  to  secure  their  free  circulation  and  to  make  them 
available  to  as  many  people  as  was  consonant  with  proper  care 
of  the  books  and  the  true  purposes  of  libraries.  This  is  a  chap- 
ter of  Thirteenth  Century  history  more  ignored  perhaps  than 
any  other,  but  which  deserves  to  be  known  and  will  appeal  to 
our  century  more  perhaps  than  to  any  intervening  period. 

The  constitutions  of  the  Abbey  St.  Victor  of  Paris  give  us 
an  excellent  idea  at  once  of  the  solicitude  with  which  the  books 
were  guarded,  yet  also  of  the  careful  effort  that  was  made  to 
render  them  useful  to  as  many  persons  as  possible.  One  of  the 
most  important  rules  at  St.  Victor  was  that  the  librarian  should 
know  the  contents  of  every  volume  in  the  library,  in  order  to  be 
able  to  direct  those  who  might  wish  to  consult  the  books  in  their 
selection,  and  while  thus  sparing  the  books  unnecessary  hand- 
ling also  save  the  readers  precious  time.  We  are  apt  to  think 
that  it  is  only  in  very  modern  times  that  this  training  of  libra- 
rians to  know  their  books  so  as  to  be  of  help  to  the  readers  was 
insisted  on.  Here,  however,  we  find  it  in  full  force  seven  cen- 
turies ago.  It  would  be  much  more  difficult  in  the  present  daj 
to  know  all  the  books  confided  to  his  care,  but  some  of  the 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  151 

librarians  at  St.  Victor  were  noted  for  the  perfection  of  their 
knowledge  in  this  regard  and  were  often  consulted  by  those 
who  were  interested  in  various  subjects. 

In  his  book  on  the  Thirteenth  Century*  M.  A.  Lecoy  de  la 
Marche  says  that  in  France,  at  least,  circulating  libraries  were 
quite  common.  As  might  be  expected  of  the  people  of  so  practi- 
cal a  century,  it  was  they  who  first  established  the  rule  that  a 
book  might  be  taken  out  provided  its  value  were  deposited  by 
the  borrower.  Such  lending  libraries  were  to  be  found  at  the 
Sorbonne,  at  St.  Germain  des  Pres,  as  well  as  at  Notre  Dame. 
There  was  also  a  famous  library  at  this  time  at  Corbie  but 
practically  every  one  of  the  large  abbeys  had  a  library  from 
which  books  could  be  obtained.  Certain  of  the  castles  of  the 
nobility,  as  for  instance  that  of  La  Ferte  en  Ponthieu,  had  libra- 
ries, with  regard  to  which  there  is  a  record,  that  the  librarian 
had  the  custom  of  lending  certain  volumes,  provided  the  person 
was  known  to  him  and  assumed  responsibility  for  the  book. 

Some  of  the  regulations  of  the  libraries  of  the  century  have 
an  interest  all  their  own  from  the  exact  care  that  was  required 
with  regard  to  the  books.  The  Sorbonne  for  instance  by  rule 
inflicted  a  fine  upon  anyone  who  neglected  to  close  large  vol- 
umes after  he  had  been  making  use  of  them.  Many  a  librarian 
of  the  modern  times  would  be  glad  to  put  into  effect  such  a 
regulation  as  this.  A  severe  fine  was  inflicted  upon  any  library 
assistant  who  allowed  a  stranger  to  go  into  the  library  alone, 
and  another  for  anyone  who  did  not  take  care  to  close  the 
do&rs.  It  seems  not  unlikely  that  these  regulations,  as  M. 
Lecoy  de  la  Marche  says,  were  in  vigor  in  many  of  the  ecclesi- 
astical and  secular  libraries  of  the  time. 

Some  of  the  regulations  of  St.  Victor  are  quite  as  interesting 
and  show  the  liberal  spirit  of  the  time  as  well  as  indicate  how 
completely  what  is  most  modern  in  library  management  was 
anticipated.  The  librarian  had  the  charge  of  all  the  books  of 
the  community,  was  required  to  have  a  detailed  list  of  them  and 
each  year  to  have  them  in  his  possession  at  least  three  times. 
On  him  was  placed  the  obligation  to  see  that  the  books  were 
not  destroyed  in  any  way,  either  by  parasites  of  any  kind  or  by 

*I<e  Treizieme  Siecle  I,itteraire  et  Scientifique,  Lille,  1857. 


152  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

dampness.  The  librarian  was  required  to  arrange  the  books  in 
such  a  manner  as  to  make  the  finding  of  them  prompt  and  easy. 
No  book  was  allowed  to  be  borrowed  unless  some  pledge  for  its 
safe  return  were  left  with  the  librarian.  This  was  emphasized 
particularly  for  strangers  who  must  give  a  pledge  equal  to  the 
value  of  the  book.  In  all  cases,  however,  the  name  of  the  bor- 
rower had  to  be  taken,  also  the  title  of  the  book  borrowed,  and 
the  kind  of  pledge  left.  The  larger  and  more  precious  books 
could  not  be  borrowed  without  the  special  permission  of  the; 
superior. 

The  origin  of  the  various  libraries  in  Paris  is  very  interesting 
as  proof  that  the  mode  of  accumulating  books  was  nearly  the 
same  as  that  which  enriches  university  and  other  such  libraries 
at  the  present  time.  The  library  of  La  St.  Chapelle  was  found- 
ed by  Louis  IX,  and  being  continuously  enriched  by  the  deposit 
therein  of  the  archives  of  the  kingdom  soon  became  of  first  im- 
portance. Many  precious  volumes  that  were  given  as  present? 
to  St.  Louis  found  their  way  into  this  library  and  made  it  dur- 
ing his  lifetime  the  most  valuable  collection  of  books  in  Paris. 
Louis,  moreover,  devoted  much  time  and  money  to  adding  to 
the  library.  He  made  it  a  point  whenever  on  his  journeys  he 
etopped  at  abbeys  or  other  ecclesiastical  institutions,  to  find  out 
what  books  were  in  their  library  that  were  not  at  La  Saint  Cha- 
pelle and  had  copies  of  these  made.  His  intimate  friendship 
with  Robert  of  Sorbonne,  with  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  with  Saint 
Bonaventure,  and  above  all  with  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  the  fa- 
mous encyclopedist  of  the  century,  widened  his  interest  in  book> 
and  must  have  made  him  an  excellent  judge  of.  what  he  ought 
to  procure  to  complete  the  library.  It  was,  as  we  shall  see, 
Louis'  munificent  patronage  that  enabled  Vincent  to  accumulate 
that  precious  store  of  medieval  knowledge,  which  was  to  prove 
a  mine  of  information  for  so  many  subsequent  generations. 

From  the  earliest  times  certain  books,  mainly  on  medicine, 
were  collected  at  the  Hotel  Dieu,  the  great  hospital  of  Paris, 
and  this  collection  was  added  to  from  time  to  time  by  the  be- 
quests of  physicians  in  attendance  there.  This  was  doubtless 
the  first  regular  hospital  library,  though  probably  medical  books 
had  also  been  collected  at  Salernum.  The  principal  colleges  of 
the  universities  also  made  collections  of  books,  some  of  them 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  153 

very  valuable,  though  as  a  rule,  it  would  seem  as  if  no  attempt 
was  made  to  procure  any  other  books  than  those  which  were  ab- 
solutely needed  for  consultation  by  the  students.  The  best 
working  library  at  Paris  was  undoubtedly  that  of  the  Sorbonne,  C 
of  which  indeed  its  books  were  for  a  long  time  its  only  treas- 
ures. For  at  first  the  Sorbonne  was  nothing  but  a  teaching  in- 
stitution which  only  required  rooms  for  its  lectures,  and  usually 
obtained  these  either  from  the  university  authorities  or  from 
the  Canons  of  the  Cathedral  and  possessed  no  property  except 
its  library.  From  the  very  beginning  the  professors  bequeathed 
whatever  books  they  had  collected  to  its  library  and  this  became 
a  custom.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  within  a  very  short 
time  the  library  became  one  of  the  very  best  in  Europe.  While 
most  of  the  other  libraries  were  devoted  mainly  to  sacred  litera- 
ture, the  Sorbonne  came  to  possess  a  large  number  of  works  of 
profane  literature.  Interesting  details  with  regard  to  this  li- 
brary of  the  Sorbonne  and  its  precious  treasures  have  been 
given  by  M.  Leopold  Delisle,  in  the  second  volume  of  Le  Cabi- 
net des  Manuserits,  describing  the  MSS.  of  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale  at  Paris.  According  to  M.  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  this 
gives  an  excellent  idea  of  the  persevering  efforts  which  must 
have  been  required,  to  bring  together  so  many  bibliographic 
treasures  at  a  time  when  books  were  such  a  rarity,  and  conse- 
quently enables  us  better  almost  than  anything  else,  to  appre- 
ciate the  enthusiasm  of  the  scholars  of  these  early  times  and 
their  wonderful  efforts  to  make  the  acquisition  of  knowledge 
easier,  not  only  for  their  own  but  for  succeeding  generations. 
When  we  recall  that  the  library  of  the  Sorbonne  was,  during 
the  Thirteenth  Century,  open  not  only  to  the  professors  and 
students  of  the  Sorbonne  itself,  but  also  to  those  interested  in 
books  and  in  literature  who  might  come  from  elsewhere,  pro- 
vided they  were  properly  accredited,  we  can  realize  to  the  full 
the  thorough  liberality  of  spirit  of  these  early  scholars.  Usually 
we  are  prone  to  consider  that  this  liberality  of  spirit,  even  in 
educational  matters,  came  much  later  into  the  world. 

In  spite  of  the  regulations  demanding  the  greatest  care,  it  is 
easy  to  understand  that  after  a  time  even  books  written  on  vel- 
lum or  parchment  would  become  disfigured  and  worn  under  the 
ardent  fingers  of  enthusiastic  students,  when  comparatively  so 


154  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

few  copies  were  available  for  general  use.  In  order  to  replace 
these  worn-out  copies  every  abbey  had  its  own  scriptorium  or 
writing  room,  where  especially  the  younger  monks  who  were 
gifted  with  plain  handwriting  were  required  to  devote  certain 
hours  every  day  to  the  copying  of  manuscripts.  Manuscripts 
were  borrowed  from  neighboring  libraries  and  copied,  or  as  in 
our  modern  day  exchanges  of  duplicate  copies  were  made,  so 
as  to  avoid  the  risk  that  precious  manuscripts  might  be  subject 
to  on  the  journeys  from  one  abbey  to  another.  How  much  the 
duty  of  transcription  was  valued  may  be  appreciated  from  the 
fact,  that  in  some  abbeys  every  novice  was  expected  to  bring 
on  the  day  of  his  profession  as  a  religious,  a  volume  of  con- 
siderable size  which  had  been  carefully  copied  by  his  own 
hands. 

Besides  these  methods  of  increasing  the  number  of  books  in 
the  library,  a  special  sum  of  money  was  set  aside  in  most  of  the 
abbeys  for  the  procuring  of  additional  volumes  for  the  library 
by  purchase.  Usually  this  took  the  form  of  an  ecclesiastical 
regulation  requiring  that  a  certain  percentage  of  the  revenues 
should  be  spent  on  the  libraries.  Scholars  closely  associated 
with  monasteries  frequently  bequeathed  their  books  and  besides 
left  money  or  incomes  to  be  especially  devoted  to  the  improve- 
ment of  the  library.  It  is  easy  to  understand  that  with  all  these 
sources  of  enrichment  many  abbeys  possessed  noteworthy 
libraries.  To  quote  only  those  of  France,  important  collections 
of  books  were  to  be  found  at  Cluny,  Luxeuil,  Fleury,  Saint- 
Martial,  Moissac,  Mortemer,  Savigny,  Fourcarmont,  Saint 
Pere  de  Charters,  Saint  Denis,  Saint-Maur-des-Fosses,  Saint 
Corneille  de  Compiegne,  Corbie,  Saint-Amand,  Saint-Martin 
de  Tournai,  where  Vincent  de  Beauvais  said  that  he  found  the 
greatest  collections  of  manuscripts  that  existed  in  his  time, 
and  then  especially  the  great  Parisian  abbeys  already  referred 
to,  Saint-Germain-des-Pres,  Saint  Victor,  Saint-Martin-des- 
Champs,  the  precious  treasures  of  which  are  well  known  to  all 
those  who  are  familiar  with  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale  of 
Paris,  of  whose  manuscript  department  their  relics  constitute 
the  most  valuable  nucleus. 

Some  of  the  bequests  of  books  that  were  made  to  libraries  at 
this  time  are  interesting,  because  they  show  the  spirit  of  the  tes- 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  155 

tators  and  at  the  same  time  furnish  valuable  hints  as  to  the  con- 
sideration in  which  books  were  held  and  the  reverent  care  of 
their  possessors  for  them.  Peter  of  Nemours,  the  Bishop  of 
Paris,  when  setting  out  on  the  crusades  with  Louis  IX.  be- 
queathed to  the  famous  Abbey  of  St.  Victor,  his  Bible  in  22 
volumes,  which  was  considered  one  of  the  finest  copies  of  the 
scriptures  at  that  time  in  existence.  To  the  Abbey^of  Olivet  he 
gave  his  Psalter  with  Glosses,  besides  the  Epistles  of  St.  Paul 
and  his  Book  of  Sentences,  by  which  is  evidently  intended  the 
well-known  work  with  that  title  by  the  famous  Peter  Lombard. 
Finally  he  gave  to  the  Cathedral  of  Paris  all  the  rest  of  his 
books.  Besides  these  he  had  very  little  to  leave.  It  is  typical 
of  the  reputation  of  Paris  in  that  century  and  the  devotion  of 
her  churchmen  to  learning  and  culture,  that  practically  all  of 
the  revenues  that  he  considered  due  him  for  his  personal 
services  had  been  invested  in  books,  which  he  then  disposed  of 
in  such  a  way  as  would  secure  their  doing  the  greatest  possible 
good  to  the  largest  number  of  people.  His  Bible  was  evidently 
given  to  the  abbey  of  St.  Victor  because  it  was  the  sort  of  work 
that  should  be  kept  for  the  occasional  reference  of  the  learned 
rather  than  the  frequent  consultation  of  students,  who  might 
very  well  find  all  that  they  desired  in  other  and  less  valuable 
copies.  His  practical  intention  with  regard  to  his  books  can  be 
best  judged  from  his  gift  to  Notre  Dame,  which,  as  we  have 
noted  already  possessed  a  very  valuable  library  that  was  al- 
lowed to  circulate  among  properly  accredited  scholars  in  Paris. 
According  to  the  will  of  Peter  Ameil,  Archbishop  of  Nar- 
bonne,  which  is  dated  1238,  he  gave  his  books  for  the  use  of  the 
scholars  whom  he  had  supported  at  the  University  of  Paris  and 
they  were  to  be  deposited  in  the  Library  at  Notre  Dame,  but  on 
condition  that  they  were  not  to  be  scattered  for  any  reason  nor 
any  of  them  sold  or  abused.  The  effort  of  the  booklover  to 
keep  his  books  together  is  characteristic  of  all  the  centuries 
since,  only  most  people  will  be  surprised  to  find  it  manifesting 
itself  so  early  in  bibliophilic  history.  The  Archbishop  reserved 
from  his  books,  however,  his  Bible  for  his  own  church.  Before 
his  death  he  had  given  the  Dominicans  in  his  diocese  many 
books  from  his  library.  This  churchman  of  the  first  half  of  the 


156  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Thirteenth  Century  seems  evidently  to  deserve  a  prominent 
place  among  the  bookmen  of  all  times. 

There  are  records  of  many  others  who  bequeathed  libraries 
and  gave  books  during  their  lifetime  to  various  institutions,  as 
may  be  found  in  the  Literary  History  of  France,*  already  men- 
tioned as  well  as  in  the  various  histories  of  the  University  of 
Paris.  Many  of  these  gifts  were  made  on  condition  that  they 
should  not  be  sold  and  the  constantly  recurring  last  wish  of 
these  old  booklovers  is  that  their  collections  should  be  kept  to- 
gether. The  libraries  of  Paris  were  also  in  the  market  for 
books,  however,  and  there  is  proof  that  the  Sorbonne  purchased 
a  number  of  volumes  because  the  cost  price  of  them  was  noted 
inside  the  cover  quite  as  libraries  do  in  our  own  days.  When 
we  realize  the  forbidding  cost  of  them,  it  is  surprising  that 
there  should  be  so  much  to  say  about  them  and  so  many  of 
them  constantly  changing  hands.  An  ordinary  folio  volume 
probably  cost  from  400  to  500  francs,  in  our  values,  that  is  be- 
tween $80  and  $100. 

While  the  older  abbeys  of  the  Benedictines  and  other  earlier 
religious  orders  possessed  magnificent  collections  of  books,  the 
newer  orders  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  the  Mendi- 
cants, though  as  their  name  indicates  they  were  bound  to  live 
by  alms  given  them  by  the  faithful,  within  a  short  time  after 
their  foundation  began  to  take  a  prominent  part  in  the  library 
movement.  It  was  in  the  southern  part  of  France  that  the 
Dominicans  were  strongest  and  so  there  is  record  of  regulations 
for  libraries  made  at  Toulouse  in  the  early  part  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century.  In  Paris,  in  1239,  considerable  time  and  dis- 
cussion was  devoted  in  one  of  the  chapters  of  the  order  to  the 
question  of  how  books  should  be  kept,  and  how  the  library 
should  be  increased.  With  regard  to  the  Franciscans,  though 
their  poverty  was,  if  possible,  stricter,  the  same  thing  is  known 
before  the  end  of  the  century.  In  both  orders  arrangements 
were  made  for  the  copying  of  important  works  and  it  is,  of 
course,  to  the  zeal  and  enthusiasm  of  the  younger  members  of 
these  orders  for  this  copying  work,  that  we  owe  the  preserva- 
tion by  means  of  a  large  number  of  manuscript  copies,  of  the 

*  Histoire  Ljtteraire  de  la  France,  by  the  Benedictines  of  St.  Maur. 


MONUMENT   OF   CARD.   1>E   BRAY    (ARNULFO) 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  157 

voluminous  writings  of  such  men  as  Albertus  Magnus,  St. 
Thomas,  Duns  Scotus  and  others. 

While  the  existence  of  libraries  of  various  kinds,  and  even 
circulating  libraries,  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  may  seem  defi- 
nitely settled,  it  will  appear  to  most  people  that  to  speak  of 
book  collecting  at  this  time  must  be  out  of  place.  That  fad  is 
usually  presumed  to  be  of  much  later  origin  and  indeed  to  be 
comparatively  recent  in  its  manifestations.  We  have  said 
enough  already,  however,  of  the  various  collections  of  books  in 
libraries  especially  in  France  to  show  that  the  book  collector 
was  abroad,  but  there  is  much  more  direct  evidence  of  this 
available  .from  an  English  writer.  Richard  de  Bury's  Philobiblon 
is  very  well  known  to  all  who  are  interested  in  books  for  their 
own  sake,  but  few  people  realize  that  this  book  practically  had 
its  origin  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  writer  was  born 
about  the  beginning  of  the  last  quarter  of  that  century,  had 
completed  his  education  before  its  close,  and  it  is  only  reason- 
able to  attribute  to  the  formative  influences  at  work  in  his  intel- 
lectual development  as  a  young  man,  the  germs  of  thought  from 
which  were  to  come  in  later  life  the  interesting  book  on  bibli- 
ophily,  the  first  of  its  kind,  which  was  to  be  a  treasure  for 
book-lovers  ever  afterwards. 

Philobiblon  tells  us,  among  other  things,  of  Richard's 
visits  to  the  continent  on  an  Embassy  to  the  Holy  See  and  on 
subsequent  occasions  to  the  Court  of  France,  and  the  delight 
which  he  experienced  in  handling  many  books  which  he  had 
never  seen  before,  in  buying  such  of  them  as  his  purse  would 
allow,  or  his  enthusiasm  could  tempt  from  their  owners  and  in 
conversing  with  those  who  could  tell  him  about  books  and  their 
contents.  Such  men  were  the  chosen  comrades  of  his  journeys, 
sat  with  him  at  table,  as  Mr.  Henry  Morley  tells  us  in  his  Eng- 
lish Writers  (volume  IV,  page  51),  and  were  in  almost  con- 
stant fellowship  with  him.  It  was  at  Paris  particularly  that 
Richard's  heart  was  satisfied  for  a  time  because  of  the  great 
treasures  he  found  in  the  magnificent  libraries  of  that  city.  He 
was  interested,  of  course,  in  the  University  and  the  opportunity 
for  intellectual  employment  afforded  by  Academic  proceedings, 
but  above  all  he  found  delight  in  books,  which  monks  and  mon- 
archs  and  professors  and  churchmen  of  all  kinds  and  scholars 


158  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

and  students  had  gathered  into  this  great  intellectual  capital  of 
Europe  at  that  time.  Anyone  who  thinks  the  books  were  not 
valued  quite  as  highly  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  as  at  the  pres- 
ent time  should  read  the  Philobiblon.  He  is  apt  to  rise  from 
the  reading  of  it  with  the  thought  that  it  is  the  modern  genera- 
tions who  do  not  properly  appreciate  books. 

One  of  the  early  chapters  of  Philobiblon  argues  that  books 
ought  always  to  be  bought  whatever  they  cost,  provided  Ihere 
are  means  to  pay  for  them,  except  in  two-  cases,  "when  they  are 
knavishly  overcharged,  or  when  a  better  time  for  buying  is 
expected."  "That  sun  of  men,  Solomon,"  Richard  says,  "bids 
us  buy  books  readily  and  sell  them  unwillingly,  for  one  of  his 
proverbs  runs,  'Buy  the  truth  and  sell  it  not,  also  wisdom  and 
instruction  and  understanding/  '  Richard  in  his  own  quaint 
way  thought  that  most  other  interests  in  life  were  only  tempta- 
tions to  draw  men  away  from  books.  In  one  famous  paragraph 
he  has  naively  personified  books  as  complaining  with  regard  to 
the  lack  of  attention  men  now  display  for  them  and  the  un- 
worthy objects,  in  Richard's  eyes  at  least,  upon  which  they 
fasten  their  affections  instead,  and  which  take  them  away  from 
the  only  great  life  interest  that  is  really  worth  while — books. 

"Yet,"  complain  books,  "in  these  evil  times  we  are  cast  out 
of  our  place  in  the  inner  chamber,  turned  out  of  doors,  and  our 
place  taken  by  dogs,  birds,  and  the  two-legged  beast  called 
woman.  But  that  beast  has  always  been  our  rival,  and  when 
she  spies  us  in  a  corner,  with  no  better  protection  than  the  web 
of  a  dead  spider,  she  drags  us  out  with  a  frown  and  violent 
speech,  laughing  us  to  scorn  as  useless,  and  soon  counsels  us  to 
be  changed  into  costly  head-gear,  fine  linen,  silk  and  scarlet 
double  dyed,  dresses  and  divers  trimmings,  linens  and  woolens. 
And  so,"  complain  the  books  still,  "we  are  turned  out  of  our 
homes,  our  coats  are  torn  from  our  backs,  our  backs  and  sides 
ache,  we  lie  about  disabled,  our  natural  whiteness  turns  to  yel- 
low— without  doubt  we  have  the  jaundice.  Some  of  us  are 
gouty,  witness  our  twisted  extremities.  Our  bellies  are  griped 
and  wrenched  and  are  consumed  by  worms;  on  each  side  the 
dirt  cleaves  to  us,  nobody  binds  up  our  wounds,  we  lie  ragged 
and  weep  in  dark  corners,  or  meet  with  Job  upon  a  dunghill, 
or,  as  seems  hardly  fit  to  be  said,  we  are  hidden  in  abysses  of  the 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  159 

sewers.  We  are  sold  also  like  slaves,  and  lie  as  unredeemed 
pledges  in  taverns.  We  are  thrust  into  cruel  butteries,  to  be  cut 
up  like  sheep  and  cattle ;  committed  to  Jews,  Saracens,  heretics 
and  Pagans,  whom  we  always  dread  as  the  plague,  and  by 
whom  some  of  our  forefathers  are  known  to  have  been  poi- 
soned." 

Richard  De  Bury  must  not  be  thought  to  have  been  some 
mere  wandering  scholar  of  the  beginning  of  the  Fourteenth 
Century,  however,  for  he  was,  perhaps,  the  most  important  his- 
torical personage,  not  even  excepting  royalty  or  nobility,  of 
this  era  and  one  of  the  striking  examples  of  how  high  a  mere 
scholar  might  rise  in  this  period  quite  apart  from  any  achieve- 
ment in  arms,  though  this  is  usually  supposed  to  be  almost  the 
only  basis  of  distinguished  reputation  and  the  reason  for  ad- 
vancement at  this  time.  While  he  was  only  the  son  of  a  Nor- 
man knight,  Aungervyle  by  name,  born  at  Bury  St.  Ed- 
mund's, he  became  the  steward  of  the  palace  and  treasurer  ot 
the  royal  wardrobe,  then  Lord  Treasurer  of  England  and  finally 
Lord  Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal.  While  on  a  mission  to  the 
Pope  he  so  commended  himself  to  the  Holy  See  that  it  was  re- 
solved to  make  him  the  next  English  bishop.  Accordingly  he 
was  made  Bishop  of  Durham  shortly  after  and  on  the  occasion 
ot  his  installation  there  was  a  great  banquet  at  which  the  young 
King  and  Queen,  the  Queen  Mother  Isabelle,  t;he  King  of  Scot- 
land, two  Archbishops,  five  bishops,  and  most  of  the  great 
English  lords  were  present.  At  this  time  the  Scots  and  the  En- 
glish were  actually  engaged  in  war  with  one  another  and  a  spe- 
cial truce  was  declared,  in  order  to  allow  them  to  join  in  the 
celebration  of  the  consecration  of  so  distinguished  an  individual 
to  the  See  of  Durham  near  the  frontier. 

Before  he  was  consecrated  Bishop,  Richard  De  Bury  had 
been  for  some  time  the  treasurer  of  the  kingdom.  Before  the 
end  of  the  year  in  which  he  was  consecrated  he  became  Lord 
Chancellor,  at  a  time  when  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom  needed  a 
master  hand  and  when  the  French  and  the  Scots  were  seriously 
disturbing  English  peace  and  prosperity.  He  resigned  his  office 
of  Chancellor,  as  Henry  Morley  states,  only  to  go  abroad  in  the 
royal  service  as  ambassador  that  he  might  exercise  his  own 
trusted  sagacity  in  carrying  out  the  peaceful  policy  he  had  ad- 


160  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

vised.  During  this  diplomatic  mission  to  the  continent  he  vis- 
ited the  courts  of  Paris,  of  Flanders,  of  Hainault  and  of  Ger- 
many. He  succeeded  in  making  terms  of  peace  between  the 
English  king  and  the  Counts  of  Hainault  and  Namur,  the  Mar- 
quis of  Juliers  and  the  Dukes  of  Brabant  and  Guelders.  This 
would  seem  to  indicate  that  he  must  be  considered  as  one  of 
the  most  prominent  men  of  Europe  at  this  time. 

His  attitude  toward  books  is  then  all  the  more  noteworthy. 
Many  people  were  surprised  that  a  great  statesman  like  Glad- 
stone in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  should  have  been  interested  in 
so  many  phases  of  thought  and  of  literature  and  should  himself 
have  been  able  to  find  the  time  to  contribute  important  works 
to  English  letters.  Richard  De  Bury  was  at  least  as  important 
a  man  in  his  time  as  Gladstone  in  ours,  and  occupied  himself  as 
much  with  books  as  the  great  English  commoner.  This  is  what 
will  be  the  greatest  source  of  surprise  to  those  who  in  our  time 
have  been  accustomed  to  think,  that  the  great  scholars  deeply  in- 
terested in  books  who  were  yet  men  of  practical  worth  in  help- 
ing their  generation  in  its  great  problems,  are  limited  to  mod- 
ern times  and  are  least  of  all  likely  to  be  found  in  the  heart  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  In  spite  of  his  occupations  as  a  politician 
and  a  bookman,  Richard  De  Bury  was  noted  for  his  faithful- 
ness in  the  fulfilment  of  his  duties  as  a  churchman  and  a  bishop. 
It  is  worthy  of  note  that  many  of  the  important  clergymen  of 
England,  who  were  to  find  the  highest  church  preferment  after- 
wards, were  among  the  members  of  his  household  at  various 
times  and  that  the  post  of  secretary  to  the  bishop,  particularly, 
was  filled  at  various  times  by  some  of  the  best  scholars  of  the 
period,  men  who  were  devoted  friends  to  the  bishop,  who  dedi- 
cated their  works  to  him  and  generally  added  to  the  reputation 
that  stamped  him  as  the  greatest  scholar  of  England  and  one  of 
the  leading  lights  of  European  culture  of  his  time. 

This  is  not  so  surprising  when  we  realize  that  to  be  a  membei 
of  Richard's  household  was  to  have  access  to  the  best  library 
in  England,  and  that  many  scholars  were  naturally  ambitious 
to  have  such  an  opportunity,  and  as  the  results  showed  many 
took  advantage  of  it.  Among  Richard  of  Durham's  chaplains 
were  Thomas  Bradwardine  who  afterwards  became  Archbishop 
o'f  Canterbury.  Richard  Fitzfaufe,  subsequently  Archbishop  of 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  161 

Armagh,  Walter  Seagrave,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Chichester, 
and  Richard  Bentworth,  who  afterwards  became  Bishop  of 
London  Among  the  distinguished  scholars  who  occupied  the 
post  were  Robert  Holcot,  John  Manduit,  the  astronomer  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century,  Richard  Kilmington,  a  distinguished 
English  theologian,  and  Walter  Burley,  a  great  commentator 
on  Aristotle,  who  dedicated  to  the  bishop,  who  had  provided 
him  with  so  many  opportunities  for  study,  his  Commentaries 
upon  the  Politics  and  Ethics  of  the  ancient  Greek  philosopher. 

That  Richard's  love  for  books  and  the  time  he  had  neces- 
sarily devoted  to  politics  did  not  dry  up  the  fountains  of  charity 
in  his  heart,  nor  cause  him  to  neglect  his  important  duties  as 
the  pastor  of  the  people  and  especially  of  the  poor,  we  know 
very  well  from  certain  traditions  with  regard  to  his  charitable 
donations.  According  to  a  standing  rule  in  his  household  eight 
quarters  of  wheat  were  regularly  every  week  made 
into  bread  and.  given  to  the  poor.  In  his  alms  giv- 
ing Richard  was  as  careful  and  as  discriminating  as 
in  his  collection  of  books,  and  he  used  a  number  of 
the  regularly  organized  channels  in  his  diocese  to  make  sure 
that  his  bounty  should  be  really  helpful  and  should  not  en- 
courage lack  of  thrift.  This  is  a  feature  of  charitable  work 
that  is  supposed  to  be  modern,  but  the  personal  service  of  the 
charitably  inclined  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  far  surpassed  in 
securing  this  even  the  elaborate  organization  of  charity  in 
modern  times.  Wrhenever  the  bishop  traveled  generous  alms 
were  distributed  to  the  poor  people  along  the  way.  Whenever 
he  made  the  journey  between  Durham  and  New  Castle  eight 
pounds  sterling  were  set  aside  for  this  purpose ;  five  pounds  for 
each  journey  between  Durham  and  Stockton  or  Middleham, 
and  five  marks  between  Durham  and  Auckland.  Money  had 
at  that  time  at  least  ten  times  the  purchasing  power  which  it 
has  at  present,  so  that  it  will  be  easy  to  appreciate  the  good 
bishop's  eminent  liberality. 

That  Richard  was  justified  in  his  admiration  of  the  books  of 
the  time  we  know  from  those  that  remain,  for  it  must  not  be 
thought  for  a  moment  that  because  the  making  of  books  was 
such  a  time-taking  task  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  they  were 
not  therefore  macle  beautiful.  On  the  contrary,  as  we  shall  see 


162  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

shortly,  no  more  beautiful  books  have  ever  been  made  than  at 
this  time.  This  of  itself  would  show  how  precious  in  the  eyes 
of  the  collectors  of  the  time  their  books  were,  since  they  wanted 
to  have  them  so  beautifully  made  anH  were  satisfied  to  pay  the 
high  prices  that  had  to  be  demanded  for  such  works  of  art. 
Very  few  books  of  any  size  cost  less  than  the  equivalent  of  $100 
in  our  time  and  illuminated  books  cost  much  higher  than  this, 
yet  seem  never  to  have  been  a  drug  on  the  market.  Indeed, 
considering  the  number  of  them  that  are  still  in  existence  to 
this  day,  in  spite  of  the  accidents  of  fire,  and  water,  and  war, 
and  neglect,  and  carelessness,  and  ignorance,  there  must  have 
been  an  immense  number  of  very  handsome  books  made  by  the 
generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 

While  illumination  was  not  an  invention  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  as  indeed  were  very  few  of  the  great  art  features  of  the 
century,  during  this  time  book  decoration  was  carried  to  great 
perfection  and  reached  that  development  which  artists  of  the 
next  century  were  to  improve  on  in  certain  extrinsic  features, 
though  the  intrinsic  qualities  were  to  remain  those  which  had 
been  determined  as  the  essential  characteristics  of  this  branch 
of  art  in  the  earlier  time.  The  Thirteenth  Century,  for  in- 
stance, saw  the  introduction  of  the  miniature  as  a  principal  fea- 
ture and  also  the  drawing  out  of  initials  in  such  a  way  as  to 
make  an  illuminated  border  for  the  whole  side  of  the  page. 
Aiter  the  development  thus  given  to  the  art  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century  further  evolution  could  only  come  in  certain  less  im- 
portant details.  In  this  the  Thirteenth  Century  generations 
were  accomplishing  what  they  had  done  in  practically  every- 
thing else  that  they  touched,  laying  foundations  broad  and  deep 
and  giving  the  superstructure  the  commanding  form  which  fu- 
ture generations  were  only  able  to  modify  to  slight  degree  and 
not  always  with  absolute  good  grace. 

Humphreys  in  his  magnificent  volume  on  The  Illuminated 
Books  of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  according  to  its  title  contains 
an  account  of  the  development  and  progress  of  the  art  of  illu- 
mination as  a  distinct  branch  of  pictorial  ornamentation  from 
the  Fourth  to  the  Seventeenth  centuries,*  has  some  very  strik- 

*The  Illuminated  Books  of  the  Middle  Ages,  by  Henry  Noel  Hum- 
phreys Longman.  Green,  Brown  and  Longmans,  London,  1848. 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN.  163 

ing  words  of  praise  for  Thirteenth  Century  illuminations  and 
the  artists  who  made  them.  He  says  : 

"Different  epochs  of  the  art  of  illumination  present  widely 
different  and  distinct  styles;  the  most  showy  and  the  best 
known,  though  the  least  pure  and  inventive  in  design,  being 
that  of  the  middle  and  end  of  the  Fifteenth  Century ;  whilst  the 
period  perhaps  the  least  generally  known,  that  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century,  may  be  considered  as  the  most  interesting  and 
original,  many  of  the  best  works  of  that  period  displaying  an 
astonishing  variety  and  profusion  of  invention.  The  manu- 
script, of  which  two  pages  form  the  opposite  plate, 
may  be  ranked  among  the  most  elaborate  and  pro- 
fusely ornamented  of  the  fine  books  of  that  era;  every 
page  being  sufficient  to  make  the  fortune  of  the  mod- 
ern decorator  by  the  quaint  and  unexpected  novelties 
of  inventions  which  it  displays  at  every  turn  of  its  intricate 
design." 

The  illuminations  of  the  century  then  are  worthy  of  the  time 
and  also  typical  of  the  general  work  of  the  century.  It  is 
known  by  experts  for  its  originality  and  for  the  wealth  of  inven- 
tion displayed  in  the  designs.  Men  did  not  fear  that  they 
might  exhaust  their  inventive  faculty,  nor  display  their  origin- 
ality sparingly,  in  order  that  they  might  have  enough  to  com- 
plete other  work.  As  the  workmen  of  the  Cathedrals,  the 
artist  illuminators  devoted  their  very  best  efforts  to  each  piece 
of  work  that  came  to  their  hands,  and  the  results  are 
masterpieces  of  art  in  this  as  in  every  other  depart- 
ment of  the  period.  The  details  are  beautifully 
wrought,  showing  the  power  of  the  artist  to  accom- 
plish such  a  work  and  yet  his  designs  are  never  over- 
loaded, at  least  in  the  best  examples  of  the  century,  with  details 
of  ornamentation  that  obscure  and  minimize  the  effect  of  the 
original  design.  This  fault  was  to  be  the  error  of  his  most  so- 
phisticated successors  two  centuries  later. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  the  high  opinion  of  the  century  is 
derived  from  the  fact  that  only  a  very  few  examples  of  its  illu- 
mination and  bookmaking  are  now  extant,  and  that  these  being 
the  chosen  specimens  give  the  illumination  of  the  century  a 
higher  place  than  it  might  otherwise  have.  Many  examples 


164  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

have  been  preserved  and  some  of  them  are  the  most  beautiful 
books  that  were  made.  Paris  was  particularly  the  home  of  this 
form  of  art  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  indeed  the  school 
established  there  influenced  all  the  modes  of  illumination  every- 
where, so  much  so  that  Dante  speaks  of  the  art  with  the  epithet 
"Parisian,"  as  if  it  were  exclusively  done  there.  The  incentive 
to  the  development  of  this  form  of  art  came  from  St.  Louis 
who,  as  we  have  said,  was  very  much  interested  in  books.  His 
taste  as  exhibited  in  La  Sainte  Chapelle  was  such  as  to  demand 
artistic  excellence  of  high  grade  in  this  department  of  art, 
which  has  many  more  relations  with  the  architecture  of  the  pe- 
riod, and  especially  with  the  stained  glass,  than  might  possibly 
be  thought  at  the  present  time,  for  most  of  the  decoration  of 
books  partook  of  the  character  of  the  architectural  types  of  the 
moment. 

Among  the  most  precious  treasures  from  the  century  are 
three  books  which  belonged  to  St.  Louis  himself.  One  of  these 
is  the  Hours  or  Office  Book ;  a  second,  is  his  Psalter,  which  con- 
tains some  extremely  beautiful  initials ;  a  third,  which  is  in  the 
Library  of  the  Arsenal  at  Paris,  is  sometimes  known  as  the 
Prayer  Book  of  St.  Louis  himself,  though  a  better  name  for  it 
would  be  the  Prayer  Book  of  Queen  Blanche,  for  it  was  made 
at  Louis'  orders  for  his  mother,  the  famous  Blanche  of  Castile, 
and  is  a  worthy  testimonial  of  the  affectionate  relations  which 
existed  between  mother  and  son. 

Outside  of  Paris  there  are  preserved  many  books  of  great 
value  that  come  from  this  century.  One  of  them,  a  Bestiarum 
or  Book  of  Beasts,  is  in  the  Ashmoleam  Museum  at  Oxford. 
This  is  said  to  be  a  very  beautiful  example  of  the  illumination 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  but  it  is  even  more  interesting  be- 
cause it  shows  the  efforts  of  the  artists  of  the  time  to  copy 
nature  in  the  pictures  of  animals  as  they  are  presented. 
There  is  said  to  be  an  acuity  of  observation  and  a  vigor  of  rep- 
resentation displayed  in  the  book  which  is  highly  complimentary 
to  the  powers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  artists. 

Even  these  brief  notes  of  the  books  and  libraries  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  will  serve  to  make  clear  how  enthusiastic 
was  the  interest  of  the  generations  of  this  time  in  beautiful 
books  and  in  collections  of  the'm  that  were  meant  for  show  as 


LIBRARIES  AND  BOOKMEN. 


16$ 


well  as  for  practical  usefulness.  There  is  perhaps  nothing  more 
amusing  in  the  attitude  of  modern  generations  with  regard  to 
the  Middle  Ages,  than  the  assumption  that  all  the  methods  of 
education  and  of  the  distribution  of  knowledge  worth  while 
talking  about,  are  the  inventions  of  comparatively  modern 
times.  The  fact  that  libraries  were  also  a  creation  of  that  time 
and  that  most  of  the  regulations  which  are  supposed  to  be  the 
first  fruit  of  quite  recent  science  in  the  circulation  of  books  had 
been  adopted  by  these  earlier  generations,  is  commonly  ignored 
utterly,  though  it  is  a  precious  bit  of  knowledge  that  cannot 
help  but  increase  our  sympathy  with  those  bookmen  of  the 
olden  times,  who  thought  so  much  of  their  books,  yet  wished 
to  share  the  privilege  of  their  use  with  all  those  who  would  em- 
ploy them  sproperly,  and  who,  in  their  great  practical  way  suc- 
ceeded in  working  out  the  scheme  by  which  many  people 
could  have  the  opportunity  of  consulting  the  treasures  they 
thought  so  much  of,  without  risk  of  their  loss  or  destruction, 
even  though  use  might  bring  some  deterioration  of  their 
value. 


DECORATION    THIRTEENTH   CENTURY  MS. 


166  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

X 

THE  CID,  THE  HOLY  GRAIL,  THE  NIBELUNGEN. 


Anyone  who  has  studied  even  perfunctorily  the  Books  of  the 
Arts  and  of  the  Deeds  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  who  has  real- 
ized its  accomplishments  in  enduring  artistic  creations,  sublime 
and  exemplary  models  and  inspirations  for  all  after  time,  who 
has  appreciated  what  it  succeeded  in  doing  for  the  education  of 
the  classes  and  of  the  masses,  the  higher  education  being  pro- 
vided for  at  least  as  large  a  proportion  of  the  people  as  in  our 
present  century,  while  the  creation  of  what  were  practically 
great  technical  schools  that  culled  out  of  the  masses  the  latent 
geniuses  who  could  accomplish  supreme  artistic  results  in  the 
arts  and  crafts  and  did  more  and  better  for  the  masses  than 
any  subsequent  generation,  can  scarcely  help  but  turn  with  in- 
terest to  read  the  Book  of  the  Words  of  the  period  and  to  find 
out  what  forms  of  literature  interested  this  surprising  people. 
One  is  almost  sure  to  think  at  the  first  moment  of  consideration 
that  the  literature  will  not  be  found  worthy  of  the  other  achieve- 
ments of  the  times.  In  most  men's  minds  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury does  not  readily  call  up  the  idea  of  a  series  of  great  works 
in  literature,  whose  influence  has  been  at  all  as  profound  and 
enduring  as  that  of  the  universities  in  the  educational  order,  or 
of  the  Cathedrals  in  the  artistic  order. 

This  false  impression,  however,  is  due  only  to  the  fact  that 
the  literary  creations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  are  so  diverse 
in  subject  and  in  origin,  that  they  are  very  seldom  associated 
with  each  other,  unless  there  has  been  actual  recognition  of 
their  contemporaneousness  from  deliberate  calling  to  mind  of 
the  dates  at  which  certain  basic  works  in  our  modern  literatures 
were  composed.  It  is  not  the  least  surprise  that  comes  to  the 
student  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  to  find  that  the  great  origins 
of  what  well  deserves  the  name  of  classic  modern  literature, 
comprising  a  series  of  immortal  works  in  prose  and  poetry, 
were  initiated  by  the  contemporaries  of  the  makers  of  the  uni- 


EPIC  POETRY.  167 

versities  and  the  builders  of  the  Cathedrals.  If  we  stop  to  think 
for  a  moment  it  must  be  realized,  that  generations  who  suc- 
ceeded in  expressing  themselves  so  effectively  in  other  depart- 
ments of  esthetics  could  scarcely  be  expected  to  fail  in  literature 
alone,  and  they  did  not.  From  the  Cid  in  Spain,  through  the 
Arthur  Legends  in  England,  the  Nibelungen  in  Germany,  the 
Minnesingers  and  the  Meistersingers  in  the  southern  part  of 
what  is  now  the  German  Empire,  the  Trouveres  in  North 
France,  the  Troubadours  in  South  France  and  in  Italy,  down  to 
Dante,  who  was  35  before  the  century  closed,  there  has  never 
been  such  a  mass  of  undying  literature  written  within  a  little 
more  than  a  single  hundred  years,  as  came  during  the  period 
from  shortly  before  1200  down  to  1300.  Great  as  was  the  Fifth 
Century  before  Christ  in  this  matter,  it  did  not  surpass  the 
Thirteenth  Century  after  Christ  in  its  influence  on  subsequent 
generations. 

We  have  already  pointed  out  in  discussing  the  Cathedrals 
that  one  of  the  most  characteristic  features  of  the  Gothic  archi- 
tecture was  the  marvelous  ease  with  which  it  lent  itself  to  the 
expression  of  national  peculiarities.  Norman  Gothic  is  some- 
thing quite  distinct  from  German  Gothic  which  arose  in  almost 
contiguous  provinces,  but  so  it  is  also  from  English  Gothic; 
these  two  were  very  closely  related  in  origin  and  undoubtedly 
the  English  Cathedrals  owe  much  to  the  Norman  influence  so 
prevalent  in  England  at  the  end  of  the  Twelfth  Century,  and 
the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Italian  Gothic  has  the 
principal  characteristic  peculiarities  of  the  architectural  style 
which  passes  under  the  name  developed  to  a  remarkable  degree, 
and  yet  its  finished  product  is  far  distant  from  any  of  the  three 
other  national  forms  that  have  been  mentioned,  yet  is  not  lack- 
ing in  a  similar  interest.  Spanish  Gothic  has  an  identity  of  its 
own  that  has  always  had  a  special  appeal  for  the  traveler.  Any 
one  who  has  ever  visited  the  shores  of  the  Baltic  sea  and  has 
seen  what  was  accomplished  in  such  places  as  Stralsund,  Greifs- 
wald,  Lubeck,  and  others  of  the  old  Hansa  towns,  will  ap- 
preciate still  more  the  power  of  Gothic  to  lend  itself  to  the  feel- 
ings of  the  people  and  to  the  materials  that  they  had  at  hand. 
Here  in  the  distant  North  they  were  far  away  from  any  sources 
of  the  stone  that  would  ordinarily  be  deemed  absolutely  neces- 


168  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

sary  for  Gothic  construction.  How  effectively  they  used  brick 
for  ecclesiastical  edifices  can  only  be  realized  by  those  who  have 
seen  the  remains  of  the  Gothic  monuments  of  this  portion  of 
Europe. 

The  distinguishing  mark  of  all  these  different  styles  is  the 
eminent  opportunity  for  the  expression  of  nationality  which 
they  afford.  It  might  be  expected  that  since  they  were  all 
Gothic,  most  of  them  would  be  little  better  than  servile  copies, 
or  at  best  scarce  more  than  good  imitations  of  the  great  origi- 
nals of  the  North  of  France.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  assertion 
of  national  characteristics,  far  from  destroying  the  effective- 
ness of  Gothic,  rather  added  new  beauties  to  this  style  of  archi- 
tecture. This  was  true  even  occasionally  when  mistakes  were 
made  by  architects  and  designers.  As  Ferguson  has  said  in 
his  History  of  Architecture,  St.  Stephen's  at  Vienna  is  full  of 
architectural  errors  and  yet  the  attractiveness  of  the  Cathedral 
remains.  It  was  a  poet  who  designed  it  and  something  of  his 
poetic  soul  gleams  out  of  the  material  structure  after  the  lapse 
of  centuries. 

In  nearly  this  same  way  the  literatures  of  the  different  coun- 
tries during  the  Thirteenth  Century  are  eminently  national  and 
mirror  with  quite  wonderful  appropriateness  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  various  people.  This  is  true  even  when  similar  sub- 
jects, as  for  instance  the  Graal  stories,  are  treated  from  nearly 
the  same  standpoint  by  the  two  Teutonic  nations,  the  Germans 
and  the  English.  Parsifal  and  Galahad  are  national  as  well  as 
poetic  heroes  with  a  distinction  of  character  all  their  own.  As 
we  shall  see,  practically  every  nation  finds  in  this  century  some 
fundamental  expression  of  its  national  feeling  that  has  been 
among  its  most  cherished  classics  ever  since. 

The  first  of  these  in  time  is  the  Cid,  which  was  written  in 
Spain  during  the  latter  half  of  the  Twelfth  Century,  but  prob- 
ably took  its  definite  form  just  about  the  beginning  of  the  Thir- 
teenth. It  might  well  be  considered  that  this  old-fashioned 
Spanish  ballad  would  have  very  little  of  interest  for  modern 
readers,  and  yet  there  are  very  few  scholars  of  the  past  cen- 
tury who  have  not  been  interested  in  this  literary  treasure. 
Critics  of  all  nations  have  been  unstinted  in  their  praise  of  it. 
Since  the  Schlegels  recalled  world  attention  to  Spanish  litera- 


EPIC  POETRY.  169 

ture,  it  has  been  considered  almost  as  unpardonable  for  anyone 
who  pretended  to  literary  culture  not  to  have  read  the  Cid,  as  it 
would  be  not  to  have  read  Don  Quixote. 

As  is  true  of  all  the  national  epics  founded  upon  a  series  of 
ballads  which  had  been  collecting  in  the  mouth  of  the  people 
for  several  centuries  before  a  great  poetic  genius  came  to  give 
them  their  supreme  expression,  there  has  been  some  doubt  ex- 
pressed as  to  the  single  authorship  of  Cid.  We  shall  find  the 
same  problem  to  be  considered  when  we  come  to  discuss  the 
Nibelungen  Lied.  A  half  a  century  ago  or  more  the  fashion  of 
the  critics  for  insisting  on  the  divided  authorship  of  such 
poems  was  much  more  prevalent  than  it  is  at  present.  At  that 
time  a  great  many  scholars,  following  the  initiative  of  Wolf 
and  the  German  separatist  critics,  declared  even  that  the 
Homeric  poems  were  due  to  more  than  one  mind.  There  are 
still  some  who  cling  to  this  idea  with  regard  to  many  of  these 
primal  national  epics,  but  at  present  most  of  the  literary  men 
are  quite  content  to  accept  the  idea  of  a  single  authorship. 
With  regard  to  the  Cid  in  this  matter  Mr.  Fitzmaurice  Kelly, 
ir  his  Short  History  of  Spanish  Literature  in  the  Literatures  of 
the  World  Series,  says  very  simply : 

"There  is  a  unity  of  conception  and  of  language  which  for- 
bids our  accepting  the  Poema  (del  Cid)  as  the  work  of  several 
hands ;  and  the  division  of  the  poem  into  several  cantares  is  man- 
aged with  a  discretion  which  argues  a  single  artistic  intelli- 
gence. The  first  part  closes  with  a  marriage  of  the  hero's 
daughters ;  the  second  with  the  shame  of  the  Infantes  de  Car- 
rion, and  the  proud  announcement  that  the  Kings  of  Spain  are 
sprung  from  Cid's  loins.  In  both  the  singer  rises  to  the  level 
of  his  subject,  but  his  chief est  gust  is  in  the  recital  of  some  bril- 
liant deed  of  arms." 

The  Spanish  ballad  epic  is  a  characteristic  example  of  the  « 
epics  formed  by  the  earliest  poetic  genius  of  a  country,  on  the 
basis  of  the  patriotic  stories  of  national  origin  that  had  been 
accumulating  for  centuries.  Of  course  the  Cid  had  to  be  the 
Christian  hero  who  did  most  in  his  time  against  the  Moslem  in 
Spain.  So  interesting  has  his  story  been  made,  and  so  glorious 
have  been  his  deeds  as  recorded  by  the  poets,  that  there  has 
been  even  some  doubt  of  his  existence  expressed,  but  that  he 


1 70  ORE  A  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

was  a  genuine  historical  character  seems  to  be  clear.  Many 
people  will  recall  the  Canons'  argument  in  the  forty-ninth  chap- 
ter of  Don  Quixote  in  which  Cervantes,  evidently  speaking  for 
Mmself,  says:  "That  there  was  a  Cid  no  one  will  deny  and 
likewise  a  Bernardo  Del  Carpio,  but  that  they  performed  all  the 
exploits  ascribed  to  them,  I  believe  there  is  good  reason  to 
doubt."  The  Cid  derives  his  name  from  the  Arabic  Seid  which 
means  Lord  and  owes  his  usual  epithet,  El  Campeador  (cham- 
pion), to  the  fact  that  he  was  the  actual  champion  of  the  Chris- 
tians against  the  Moors  at  the  end  of  the  Eleventh  Century. 
How  gloriously  his  warlike  exploits  have  been  described  may  be 
best  appreciated  from  the  following  description  of  his  charge  at 
Alcocer : 

'With  bucklers  braced  before  their  breasts,  with  lances  pointing 
low, 

With  stooping  crests  and  heads  bent  down  above  the  saddle- 
bow, 

All  firm  of  hand  and  high  of  heart  th^y  roll  upon  the  foe. 

And  he  that  in  good  hour  was  born,  his  clarion  voice  rings  out, 

And  clear  above  the  clang  of  arms  is  heard  his  battle-shout, 

'Among  them,  gentlemen !  Strike  home  for  the  love  of  charity ! 

The  Champion  of  Bivar  is  here — Ruy  Diaz — I  am  he !' 

Then  bearing  where  Bermuez  still  maintains  unequal  fight, 

Three  hundred  lances  down  they  come,  their  pennons  flicker-- 
ing white ; 

Down  go  three  hundred  Moors  to  earth,  a  man  to  every  blow ; 

And,  when  they  wheel,  three  hundred  more,  as  charging  back 
they  go, 

It  was  a  sight  to  see  the  lances  rise  and  fall  that  day ; 

The  shivered  shields  and  riven  mail,  to  see  how  thick  they  lay ; 

The  pennons  that  went  in  snow-white  come  out  a  gory  red ; 

The  horses  running  riderless,  the  riders  lying  dead ; 

While  Moors  call  on  Muhamed,  and  'St.  James !'  the  Christians 
cry." 

While  the  martial  interest  of  such  early  poems  would  be 
generally  conceded,  it  would  usually  be  considered  that  they 
would  be  little  likely  to  have  significant  domestic,  and  even 


EPIC  POETRY.  171 

what  might  be  called  romantic,  interests.  The  Cid's  marriage 
is  the  result  of  not  what  would  exactly  be  called  a  romance 
nowadays,  though  in  ruder  times  there  may  have  been  a  certain 
sense  of  sentimental  reparation  in  it  at  least.  He  had  killed 
in  fair  fight  the  father  of  a  young  woman,  who  being  thus  left 
without  a  protector  appealed  to  the  king  to  appoint  one  for  her. 
In  the  troublous  Middle  Ages  an  heiress  was  as  likely  to  be 
snapped  up  by  some  unsuitable  suitor,  more  literally  but  with 
quite  as  much  haste,  as  in  a  more  cultured  epoch.  The  king 
knew  no  one  whom  he  could  trust  so  well  with  the  guardianship 
of  the  rich  and  fair  young  orphan  than  the  Cid,  of  whose 
bravery  and  honor  he  had  had  many  proofs.  Accordingly  he 
suggested  him  as  a  protector  and  the  Cid  himself  generously 
realizing  how  much  the  fair  Jimena  had  lost  by  the  death  of 
her  father  consented,  and  in  a  famous  passage  of  the  poem,  a 
little  shocking  to  modern  ideas,  it  must  be  confessed,  frankly 
states  his  feelings  in  the  matter : 

"And  now  before  the  altar  the  bride  and  bridegroom  stand, 

And  when  to  fair  Jimena  the  Cid  stretched  forth  his  hand, 

He  spake  in  great  confusion :    'Thy  father  have  I  slain 

Not  treacherously,  but  face  to  face,  my  just  revenge  to  gain 

For  cruel  wrong ;  a  man  I  slew,  a  m^n  I  give  to  thee ; 

In  place  of  thy  dead  father,  a  husband  find  in  me/ 

And  all  who  heard  well  liked  the  man,  approving  what  he  said ; 

Thus  Rodrigo  the  Castilian  his  stately  bride  did  wed." 

There  are  tender  domestic  scenes  between  the  Cid  and  his 
wife  and  his  daughters,  which  serve  to  show  how  sincere  was 
his  affection  and  with  what  sympathetic  humanity  a  great  poet 
knew  how  to  depict  the  tender  natural  relations  which  have  an 
interest  for  all  times.  Some  of  these  domestic  scenes  are  not 
unworthy  to  be  placed  beside  Homer's  picture  of  the  parting  of 
Hector  and  Andromache,  though  there  is  more  naive  self-con- 
sciousness in  the  work  of  the  Spanish  bard,  than  in  that  of  his 
more  artistic  colleague  of  the  Grecian  olden  times.  There  is 
particularly  a  famous  picture  of  the  duties  of  noble  ladies  in 
Spain  of  this  time  and  of  the  tender  solicitude  of  a  father  for 
his  daughters*  innocence,  that  is  quite  beyond  expectation  at 


174  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

all  perfectly  detached  tales,  till  in  the  Twelfth  Century  Robert 
de  Borron  (let  us  add,  at  Map's  suggestion)  translated  the  first 
Romance  of  the  St.  Graal  as  an  introduction  to  the  series,  and 
shortly  afterwards  Walter  Map  added  his  Quest  of  the  Graal, 
Lancelot,  and  Mort  Artus.  The  way  for  such  work  had  been 
prepared  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  bold  setting  forward  of 
King  Arthur  as  a  personage  of  history,  in  a  book  that  was 
much  sought  and  discussed,  and  that  made  the  Arthurian  Ro- 
mances a  fresh  subject  of  interest  to  educated  men. 

"But  M.  Paulin  Paris,  whose  opinions,  founded  upon  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  the  contents  of  old  MSS.  I  am  now  sketch- 
ing, and  in  part  adopting,  looked  upon  Walter  Map  as  the  soul 
of  this  work  of  Christian  spiritualisation.  Was  the  romance  of 
the  St.  Graal  Latin. before  it  was  French?  He  does  not  doubt 
that  if  was.  He  sees  in  it  the  mysticism  of  the  subtlest  theo- 
logian. It  was  not  a  knight  or  a  jongleur  who  was  so  well  read 
in  the  apocryphal  gospels,  the  legends  of  the  first  Christian 
centuries,  rabbinical  fancies,  and  old  Greek  mythology;  and 
there  is  all  this  in  the  St.  Graal.  There  is  a  theory,  too,  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  mass,  an  explanation  of  the  Saviour's  presence 
in  the  Eucharist,  that  is  the  work,  he  says,  of  the  loftiest  and 
the  most  brilliant  imagination.  These  were  not  matters  that  a 
knight  of  the  Twelfth  Century  would  dare  to  touch.  They 
came  from  an  ecclesiastic  and  a  man  of  genius.  But  if  so,  why 
should  we  refuse  credit  to  the  assertion,  repeated  in  every  MS. 
that  they  were  first  written  in  Latin?  The  earliest  MSS.  are 
of  a  date  not  long  subsequent  to  the  death  of  Walter  Map, 
Latinist,  theologian,  wit,  and  Chaplain  to  King  Henry  II.,  who 
himself  took  the  liveliest  interest  in  Breton  legends.  King 
Henry,  M.  Paris  supposes,  wished  them  to  be  collected,  but 
how?  Some  would  prefer  one  method,  some  another;  Map 
reconciled  all.  He  satisfied  the  clergy,  pleased  the  scholar, 
filled  the  chasms  in  the  popular  tales,  reconciled  contradictions, 
or  rejected  inconsistencies,  and  by  him  also  the  introductory 
tale  of  the  Graal  was  first  written  \n  Latin  for  Robert  de 
Borron  to  translate  into  French." 

The  best  literary  appreciation  of  Map's  genius,  apart,  of 
course,  from  the  fact  that  all  generations  ever  since  have  ac- 
knowledged the  supreme  human  interest  and  eminently  sym- 


EPIC  POETRY.  175 

pathetic  quality  of  his  work,  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  certain 
remarks  of  the  modern  critics  who  have  made  special  studies- 
in  these  earlier  literary  periods.  Prof.  George  Saintsbury,  of 
the  University  of  Edinburgh,  for  instance,  in  the  second  volume 
of  Periods  of  English  Literature,*  has  been  quite  unstinted 
in  his  praise  of  this  early  English  wnter.  He  has  not  hesitated 
even  to  say  in  a  striking  passage  that  Map,  or  at  least  the 
original  author  of  the  Launcelot  story,  was  one  of  the  greatest 
of  literary  men  and  deserves  a  place  only  next  to  Dante  in  this 
century  so  preciously  full  of  artistic  initiative. 

"Whether  it  was  Walter  Map,  or  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  or 
both,  or  neither  to  whom  the  glory  of  at  once  completing  and 
exalting  the  story  is  due,  I  at  least  have  no  pretension  to  decide. 
Whoever  did  it,  if  he  did  it  by  himseif,  was  a  great  man  indeed 
— a  man  second  to  Dante  among  the  men  of  the  Middle  Age. 
Even  if  it  was  done  by  an  irregular  company  of  men,  each 
patching  and  piecing  the  other's  efforts,  the  result  shows  a  mar- 
velous 'wind  of  the  spirit '  abroad  and  blowing  on  that  com- 
pany." 

Prof.  Saintsbury  then  proceeds  to  show  how  much  even  read- 
ers of  Mallory  miss  of  the  greatness  and  especially  of  the  sym- 
pathetic humanity  of  the  original  poem,  and  in  a  further  pas- 
sage states  his  firm  conviction  that  the  man  who  created  Lance- 
lot was  one  of  the  greatest  literary  inventors  and  sympathetic 
geniuses  of  all  times,  and  that  his  work  is  destined,  because  the 
wellsprings  of  its  action  are  so  deep  down  in  the  human  heart, 
to  be  of  interest  to  generations  of  men  for  as  long  as  our  pres- 
ent form  of  civilization  lasts. 

"Perhaps  the  great  artistic  stroke  in  the  whole  legend,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  in  all  literature,  is  the  concoction  of  a  hero 
who  should  be  not  only 

'Like  Paris  handsome,  and  like  Hector  brave/ 
but  more  heroic  than  Paris  and  more  interesting  than  Hector — 
not  only  a  'greatest  knight/  but  at  once  the  sinful  lover  of  his 
queen  and  the  champion  who  should  himself  all  but  achieve 
and  in  the  person  of  his  son  actually  achieve,  the  sacred  ad- 

*The  Flourishing  of  Romance  and  the  Rise  of  Allegory,  by  George 
Saintsbury,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English  Literature  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh  (New  York,  Charles  Scribner  &  Sons,  1897). 


174  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

all  perfectly  detached  tales,  till  in  the  Twelfth  Century  Robert 
de  Borron  (let  us  add,  at  Map's  suggestion)  translated  the  first 
Romance  of  the  St.  Graal  as  an  introduction  to  the  series,  and 
shortly  afterwards  Walter  Map  added  his  Quest  of  the  Graal, 
Lancelot,  and  Mort  Artus.  The  way  for  such  work  had  been 
prepared  by  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth's  bold  setting  forward  of 
King  Arthur  as  a  personage  of  history,  in  a  book  that  was 
much  sought  and  discussed,  and  that  made  the  Arthurian  Ro- 
mances a  fresh  subject  of  interest  to  educated  men. 

"But  M.  Paulin  Paris,  whose  opinions,  founded  upon  a  wide 
acquaintance  with  the  contents  of  old  MSS.  I  am  now  sketch- 
ing, and  in  part  adopting,  looked  upon  Walter  Map  as  the  soul 
of  this  work  of  Christian  spiritualisation.  Was  the  romance  of 
the  St.  Graal  Latin. before  it  was  French?  He  does  not  doubt 
that  if  was.  He  sees  in  it  the  mysticism  of  the  subtlest  theo- 
logian. It  was  not  a  knight  or  a  jongleur  who  was  so  well  read 
in  the  apocryphal  gospels,  the  legends  of  the  first  Christian 
centuries,  rabbinical  fancies,  and  old  Greek  mythology;  and 
there  is  all  this  in  the  St.  Graal.  There  is  a  theory,  too,  of  the 
sacrifice  of  the  mass,  an  explanation  of  the  Saviour's  presence 
in  the  Eucharist,  that  is  the  work,  he  says,  of  the  loftiest  and 
the  most  brilliant  imagination.  These  were  not  matters  that  a 
knight  of  the  Twelfth  Century  would  dare  to  touch.  They 
came  from  an  ecclesiastic  and  a  man  of  genius.  But  if  so,  why 
should  we  refuse  credit  to  the  assertion,  repeated  in  every  MS. 
that  they  were  first  written  in  Latin?  The  earliest  MSS.  are 
of  a  date  not  long  subsequent  to  the  death  of  Walter  Map, 
Latinist,  theologian,  wit,  and  Chaplain  to  King  Henry  II.,  who 
himself  took  the  liveliest  interest  in  Breton  legends.  King 
Henry,  M.  Paris  supposes,  wished  them  to  be  collected,  but 
how?  Some  would  prefer  one  method,  some  another;  Map 
reconciled  all.  He  satisfied  the  clergy,  pleased  the  scholar, 
filled  the  chasms  in  the  popular  tales,  reconciled  contradictions, 
or  rejected  inconsistencies,  and  by  him  also  the  introductory 
tale  of  the  Graal  was  first  written  \n  Latin  for  Robert  de 
Borron  to  translate  into  French." 

The  best  literary  appreciation  of  Map's  genius,  apart,  of 
course,  from  the  fact  that  all  generations  ever  since  have  ac- 
knowledged the  supreme  human  interest  and  eminently  sym- 


EPIC  POETRY.  175 

pathetic  quality  of  his  work,  is  perhaps  to  be  found  in  certain 
remarks  of  the  modern  critics  who  have  made  special  studies 
in  these  earlier  literary  periods.  Prof.  George  Saintsbury,  of 
the  University  of  Edinburgh,  for  instance,  in  the  second  volume 
of  Periods  of  English  Literature,*  has  been  quite  unstinted 
in  his  praise  of  this  early  English  wnter.  He  has  not  hesitated 
even  to  say  in  a  striking  passage  that  Map,  or  at  least  the 
original  author  of  the  Launcelot  story,  was  one  of  the  greatest 
of  literary  men  and  deserves  a  place  only  next  to  Dante  in  this 
century  so  preciously  full  of  artistic  initiative. 

"Whether  it  was  Walter  Map,  or  Chrestien  de  Troyes,  or 
both,  or  neither  to  whom  the  glory  of  at  once  completing  and 
exalting  the  story  is  due,  I  at  least  have  no  pretension  to  decide. 
Whoever  did  it,  if  he  did  it  by  himseif,  was  a  great  man  indeed 
— a  man  second  to  Dante  among  the  men  of  the  Middle  Age. 
Even  if  it  was  done  by  an  irregular  company  of  men,  each 
patching  and  piecing  the  other's  efforts,  the  result  shows  a  mar- 
velous 'wind  of  the  spirit '  abroad  and  blowing  on  that  com- 
pany." 

Prof.  Saintsbury  then  proceeds  to  show  how  much  even  read- 
ers of  Mallory  miss  of  the  greatness  and  especially  of  the  sym- 
pathetic humanity  of  the  original  poem,  and  in  a  further  pas- 
sage states  his  firm  conviction  that  the  man  who  created  Lance- 
lot was  one  of  the  greatest  literary  inventors  and  sympathetic 
geniuses  of  all  times,  and  that  his  work  is  destined,  because  the 
wellsprings  of  its  action  are  so  deep  down  in  the  human  heart, 
to  be  of  interest  to  generations  of  men  for  as  long  as  our  pres- 
ent form  of  civilization  lasts. 

"Perhaps  the  great  artistic  stroke  in  the  whol,e  legend,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  in  all  literature,  is  the  concoction  of  a  hero 
who  should  be  not  only 

'Like  Paris  handsome,  and  like  Hector  brave,' 
but  more  heroic  than  Paris  and  more  interesting  than  Hector — 
not  only  a  'greatest  knight,'  but  at  once  the  sinful  lover  of  his 
queen  and  the  champion  who  should  himself  all  but  achieve 
and  in  the  person  of  his  son  actually  achieve,  the  sacred  ad- 

*The  Flourishing  of  Romance  and  the  Rise  of  Allegory,  by  George 
Saintsbury,  Professor  of  Rhetoric  and  English  Literature  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Edinburgh  (New  York,  Charles  Scribner  &  Sons,  1897). 


176  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

venture  of  the  Holy  Graal.  If,  as  there  seems  no  valid  reason 
to  disbelieve,  the  hitting  upon  this  idea,  and  the  invention  or 
adoption  of  Lancelot  to  carry  it  out,  be  the  work  of  Walter 
Mapes  (or  Map),  then  Walter  Mapes  is  one  of  the  great  nov- 
elists of  the  world,  and  one  of  the  greatest  of  them.  If  it 
was  some  unknown  person  (it  could  hardly  be  Chrestien,  for 
in  Chrestien's  form  the  Graal  interest  belongs  to  Percevale, 
not  to  Lancelot  or  Galahad),  then  the  same  compliment  must 
be  paid  to  that  person  unknown.  Meanwhile  the  conception 
and  execution  of  Lancelot,  to  whomsoever  they  may  be  due, 
are  things  most  happy.  Entirely  free  from  the  faultlessness 
which  is  the  curse  of  the  classical  hero;  his  unequaled  vakr 
not  seldom  rewarded  only  by  reverses ;  his  merits  redeemed 
from  mawkishness  by  his  one  great  fault,  yet  including  all  vir- 
tues that  are  themselves  most  amiable,  and  deformed  by  no 
vice  that  is  actually  loathsome ;  the  soul  of  goodness  in  him  al- 
ways warring  with  his  human  frailty — Sir  Lancelot  fully  de- 
serves the  noble  funeral  eulogy  pronounced  over  his  grave, 
felt  by  all  the  elect  to  be,  in  both  senses,  one  of  the  first  of  all 
extant  pieces  of  perfect  English  prose." 

To  appreciate  fully  how  much  Walter  Map  accomplished  by 
his  series  of  stories  with  regard  to  King  Arthur's  Court,  it 
should  be  remembered  that  poets  and  painters  have  in  many 
generations  ever  since  found  subjects  for  their  inspiration 
within  the  bounds  of  the  work  which  he  created.  After  all, 
the  main  interest  of  succeeding  poets  who  have  put  the  legends 
into  later  forms,  has  centered  more  in  the  depth  of  humanity 
that  there  is  in  the  stories,  than  in  the  poetic  details  for  which 
they  themselves  have  been  responsible.  In  succeeding  genera- 
tions poets  have  often  felt  that  these  stories  were  so  beautiful 
that  they  deserved  to  be  retold  in  terms  readily  comprehensible 
to  their  own  generation.  Hence  Malory  wrote  his  Morte  D' 
Arthur  for  the  Fifteenth  Century,  Spenser  used  certain  portions 
of  the  old  myths  for  the  Sixteenth,  and  the  late  Poet-laureate 
set  himself  once  more  to  retell  the  Idyls  of  the  King  for  the 
Nineteenth  Century.  Each  of  these  was  adding  little  but  new 
literary  form,  to  a  work  that  genius  had  drawn  from  sources 
so  close  to  the  heart  of  human  nature,  that  the  stories  were  al- 
ways to  remain  of  enduring  interest. 


EPIC  POETRY.  177 

For  the  treasure  of  poesy  with  which  humanity  was  en- 
riched when  he  conceived  the  idea  of  setting  the  old  ballads  of 
King  Arthur  into  literary  form,  more  must  be  considered  as  due 
to  the  literary  original  writer  than  to  any  of  his  great  succes- 
sors. This  is  precisely  the  merit  of  Walter  Map.  Of  some  of  his 
less  ambitious  literary  work  we  have  many  examples  that  show 
us  how  thoroughly  interested  he  was  in  all  the  details  of  hu- 
m«*n  existence,  even  the  most  trivial.  He  had  his  likes  and  dis- 
likes, he  seems  to  have  had  some  disappointed  ambition  that 
made  him  rather  bitter  towards  ecclesiastics,  he  seems  to  have 
had  some  unfortunate  experiences,  t-specially  with  the  Cister- 
cians, though  how  much  of  this  is  assumed  rather  than  genuine, 
is  hard  to  determine  at  this  modern  day.  Many  of  the  ex- 
tremely bitter  things  he  says  with  regard  to  the  Cistercians 
might  well  be  considered  as  examples  of  that  exaggeration, 
which  in  certain  minds  constitutes  one  modality  of  humor, 
rather  than  as  serious  expressions  of  actual  thought.  It  is 
hard,  for  instance,  to  take  such  an  expression  as  the  following 
as  more  than  an  example  of  this  form  of  jesting  by  exaggera- 
tion. Map  heard  that  a  Cistercian  had  become  a  Jew.  His 
comment  was:  "If  he  wanted  to  get  far  from  the  Cistercians 
why  didn't  he  become  a  Christian." 

From  England  the  transition  to  Germany  is  easy.  Exactly 
contemporary  with  the  rise  of  the  Arthur  Legends  in  England 
ro  that  standard  of  literary  excellence  that  was  to  give  them 
their  enduring  poetic  value,  there  came  also  the  definite  ar- 
rangement and  literary  transformation  of  the  old  ballads  of  the 
German  people,  into  that  form  in  which  they  were  to  exert  a 
lasting  influence  upon  the  German  language  and  national  feel- 
ing. The  date  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied  has  been  set  down  some- 
what indefinitely  as  between  1190  and  1220.  Most  of  the 
work  was  undoubtedly  accomplished  after  the  beginning  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  and  in  the  form  in  which  we  have  it  at  pres- 
ent, there  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  much  was  done  after  the 
famous  meeting  of  the  Meistersingers  on  the  Wartburg — the 
subject  of  song  and  story  and  music  drama  ever  since,  which 
took  place  very  probably  in  the  year  1207.  With  regard  to  the 
Nibelungen  Lied,  as  in  the  case  of  the  other  great  literary 
arrangements  of  folk-ballads,  theie  has  been  question  as  to  the 


178  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

singleness  of  authorship.  Here,  however,  as  with  regard  to 
Homer  and  the  Cid,  the  trend  of  modern  criticism  has  all  been 
towards  the  attribution  of  the  poem  to  one  writer,  and  the  in- 
ternal evidence  of  similarity  of  expression  constantly  main- 
tained, a  certain  simplicity  of  feeling  and  naivete  of  repetition 
seems  to  leave  no  doubt  in  the  marter. 

As  regards  the  merits  of  the  Nibelungen  Lied  as  a  great  work 
of  literature,  there  has  been  very  little  doubt  in  the  English- 
speaking  world  at  least,  because  of  the  enthusiastic  recognition 
accorded  it  by  German  critics  and  the  influence  of  German 
criticism  in  all  branches  of  literature  over  the  whole  Teutonic 
race  during  the  Nineteenth  Century.  English  admiration  for 
(he  poem  began  after  Carlyle's  introduction  of  it  to  the  EngHsh 
reading  public  in  his  essays.  Since  this  time  it  has  come  to  be 
very  well  known  and  yet,  notwithstanding  all  that  has  been  said 
about  it  no  English  critic  has  expressed  more  fully  the  place 
of  the  great  German  poem  in  world  literature,  than  did  this 
enthusiastic  pro-German  of  the  first  half  of  the  Nineteenth 
Century. 

For  those  for  whom  Carlyle's  Essays  are  a  sealed  book  be 
cause  of  loss  of  interest  in  him  with  the  passage  of  time,  the 
citation  of  some  of  his  appreciative  critical  expressions  may  be 
necessary. 

"Here  in  the  old  Prankish  (Oberdeutsch)  dialect  of  the 
Nibelungen,  we  have  a  clear  decisive  utterance,  and  in  a  real 
system  of  verse,  not  without  essential  regularity,  great  liveliness 
and  now  and  then  even  harmony  of  rhythm.  Doubtless  we  must 
often  call  it  a  diffuse  diluted  utterance;  at  the  same  time  it  is 
genuine,  with  a  certain  antique  garrulous  heartiness,  and  has 
a  rhythm  in  the  thoughts  as  well  as  the  words.  The  simplicity 
is  never  silly;  even  in  that  perpetual  recurrence  of  epithets, 
sometimes  of  rhymes,  as  where  two  words,  for  instance  lip 
(body),  lif  (leib)  and  wip  (woman),  weib  (wife)  are  in- 
dissolubly  wedded  together,  and  the  one  never  shows  itself 
without  the  other  following — there  is  something  which  reminds 
us  not  so  much  of  poverty,  as  of  trustfulness  and  childlike  inno- 
cence. Indeed  a  strange  charm  lies  in  those  old  tones,  where, 
in  gay  dancing  melodies,  the  sternest  tidings  are  sung  to  us; 
and  deep  floods  of  sadness  and  strife  play  lightly  in  little 


EPIC  POETRY.  179 

purling  billows,  like  seas  in  summer.  It  is  as  a  meek  smile,  in 
whose  still,  thoughtful  depths  a  whole  infinitude  of  patience, 
and  love,  and  heroic  strength  lie  revealed.  But  in  other  cases 
too,  we  have  seen  this  outward  sport  and  inward  earnestness 
offer  grateful  contrasts,  and  cunning  excitement;  for  example, 
in  Tasso ;  of  whom,  though  otherwise  different  enough,  this  old 
Northern  Singer  has  more  than  once  reminded  us.  There  too, 
as  here,  we  have  a  dark  solemn  meaning  in  light  guise ;  deeds 
of  high  temper,  harsh  self-denial,  daring  and  death,  stand  em- 
bodied in  that  soft,  quick-flowing  joyfully-modulated  verse. 
Nay  farther,  as  if  the  implement,  much  more  than  we  might 
fancy,  had  influenced  the  work  done,  these  two  poems,  could 
we  trust  our  individual  feeling,  have  in  one  respect  the  same 
poetical  result  for  us ;  in  the  Nibelungen  as  in  the  Gerusalemme, 
the  persons  and  their  story  are  indeed  brought  vividly  before 
us,  yet  not  near  and  palpably  present;  it  is  rather  as  if  we 
looked  on  that  scene  through  an  inverted  telescope,  whereby  the 
whole  was  carried  far  away  into  the  distance,  the  life-large  fig- 
ures compressed  into  brilliant  miniatures,  so  clear,  so  real,  yet 
tiny,  elf-like  and  beautiful  as  well  as  lessened,  their  colors  being 
now  closer  and  brighter,  the  shadows  and  trivial  features  no 
longer  visible.  This,  as  we  partly  apprehend,  comes  of  singing 
epic  poems;  most  part  of  which  only  pretend  to  be  sung. 
Tasso's  rich  melody  still  lives  among  the  Italian  people;  the 
Nibelungen  also  is  what  it  professes  to  be,  a  song." 

The  story  of  the  Nibelungen  would  ordinarily  be  supposed 
to  be  so  distant  from  the  interests  of  modern  life,  as  scarcely  to 
hold  the  attention  of  a  reader  unless  he  were  interested  in  it 
from  a  scholarly  or  more  or  less  antiquarian  standpoint.  For 
those  who  think  thus,  however,  there  is  only  one  thing  that  will 
correct  such  a  false  impression  and  that  is  to  read  the  Nibelun- 
gen itself.  It  has  a  depth  of  simplicity  and  a  sympathetic  hu-  K 
man  interest  all  its  own  but  that  reminds  one  more  of  Homer  j 
than  of  anything  else  in  literature,  and  Homer  has  faults  but 
lack  of  interest  is  not  one  of  them.  From  the  very  beginning 
the  story  of  the  young  man  who  does  not  think  he  will  marry, 
and  whose  mother  does  not  think  that  any  one  is  good  enough 
for  him,  and  of  the  young  woman  who  is  sure  that  no  one  will 
come  that  will  attract  enough  of  her  attention  so  as  to  compel 


180  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

her  to  subject  herself  to  the  yoke  of  marriage,  are  types  of  what 
is  so  permanent  in  humanity,  that  the  readers'  attention  is  at 
once  caught.  After  this  the  righting  parts  of  the  story  become 
the  center  of  interest  and  hold  the  attention  in  spite  of  the  refin- 
ing influences  that  later  centuries  are  supposed  to  have  brought 
to  humanity. 

Hence  it  is  that  Prof.  Saintsbury  in  the  second  volume  of 
his  Periods  of  European  Literature,  already  quoted  from,  is 
able  to  say  much  of  the  modern  interest  in  the  story.  "There 
may  be,"  as  he  says,  "too  many  episodic  personages — Deitrich 
of  Bern,  for  instance,  has  extremely  little  to  do  in  this  galley. 
But  the  strength,  thoroughness,  and  in  its  own  savage  way, 
charm  of  Kriemhild's  character,  and  the  incomparable  series  of 
battles  between  the  Burgundian  princes  and  Etzel's  men  in  the 
later  cantos — cantos  which  contain  the  very  best  poetical  fight- 
ing in  the  history  of  the  world — far  more  than  redeem  this. 
The  Nibelungen  Lied  is  a  very  great  poem ;  and  with  Beowulf 
(the  oldest  but  the  least  interesting  on  the  whole),  Roland 
(the  most  artistically  finished  in  form),  and  the  poem  of  the 
Cid  (the  cheer  fullest  and  perhaps  the  fullest  of  character), 
composes  a  quartette  of  epics  with  which  the  literary  story  of 
the  great  European  literary  nations  most  appropriately  begins. 
In  bulk,  dramatic  completeness,  and  a  certain  furia,  the  Nibe- 
lungen Lied,  though  the  youngest  and  probably  the  least  origi- 
nal is  the  greatest  of  the  four." 

Less  need  be  said  of  the  Nibelungen  than  of  the  Cid  or  Wal- 
ter Map's  work  because  it  is  more  familiar,  and  even  ordi- 
nary readers  of  literature  have  been  brought  more  closely  in 
touch  with  it  because  of  its  relation  to  the  Wagnerian  operas. 
Even  those  who  know  the  fine  old  German  poems  only  pass- 
ingly, will  yet  realize  the  supreme  genius  of  their  author,  and 
those  who  need  to  have  the  opinions  of  distinguished  critics  to 
back  them  before  they  form  an  estimate  for  themselves,  will 
not  need  to  seek  far  in  our  modern  literature  to  find  lofty 
praises  of  the  old  German  epic. 

With  even  this  brief  treatment  no  reader  will  doubt  that  there 
is  in  these  three  epics,  typical  products  of  the  literary  spirit  of 
three  great  European  nations  whose  literatures  rising  high 
above  these  deep  firm  substructures,  were  to  be  of  the  greatest 


EPIC  POETRY.  181 

influence  in  the  development  of  the  human  mind,  and  yet  were 
to  remain  practically  always  within  the  limits  of  thought  and 
feeling  that  had  been  traced  by  these  old  founders  of  literature 
of  the  early  Thirteenth  Century,  whose  work,  like  that  of  their 
contemporaries  in  every  other  form  of  artistic  expression,  was 
to  be  the  model  and  the  source  of  inspiration  for  future  genera- 
tions. 


PASTORAL    STAFF 


182  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XI 

MEISTERSINGERS    MINNESINGERS,   TROUVERES, 
TROUBADOURS. 


It  would  be  a  supreme  mistake  to  think  because  the  idea  of 
literature  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  usually  associated  with 
the  Arthur  Legends,  the  Nibelungen  and  Dante,  that  all  of  the 
literary  content  of  the  century  was  inevitably  serious  in  char- 
acter or  always  epical  in  form.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  soul 
of  wit  and  humor  had  entered  into  the  body  social,  as  we  shall 
see  in  subsequent  chapters,  and  the  spirit  of  gaiety  and  the 
light-hearted  admiration  for  nature  found  as  frequent  expres- 
sion as  at  any  time  in  history.  With  these  as  always  in  literary 
history  there  came  outbursts  of  love  in  lyric  strains  that  were 
not  destined  to  die.  While  the  poets  of  South  Germany  and  of 
Italy  sang  of  love  that  was  of  the  loftiest  description,  never 
mingled  with  anything  of  the  merely  sensual,  their  tuneful 
trifles  are  quite  as  satisfying  to  the  modern  ear  in  both  sense 
and  sound  as  any  of  the  more  elaborate  vers  de  socictc  of  the 
modern  times.  The  German  poets  particularly  did  not  hesi- 
tate to  emphasize  the  fact  that  sensuality  had  no  part  in  Minne 
— their  pretty  term  for  love — and  yet  they  sang  with  all  the 
natural  grace  and  fervid  rapture  of  the  Grecian  poets  of  the  old 
pagan  times,  worshiping  at  the  shrines  of  fleshly  goddesses,  or 
singing  to  the  frail  beauties  of  an  unmoral  period.  Nothing  in 
the  history  of  literature  is  better  proof  that  ideal  love  can,  un- 
mixed with  anything  sensual,  inspire  lyric  outbursts  of  supreme 
and  enduring  beauty,  than  the  poems  of  the  Minnesingers  and 
of  some  of  the  French  and  Italian  Troubadours  ot  this  period. 
It  is  easier  to  understand  Dante's  position  in  this  matter  after 
reading  the  poems  of  his  predecessors  in  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury. 

For  this  feeling  of  the  lofty  character  of  the  love  they  sang 
was  not,  in  spite  of  what  is  sometimes  said,  confined  only  to  the 
Germans,  though  as  is  well  known  from  time  immemorial  the 


LYRIC  POETRY.  183 

Teutonic  feeling  towards  woman  was  by  racial  influence  of 
higher  character  than  that  of  the  southern  Nations.  As  Mr. 
H.  J.  Chaytor  says  in  the  introduction  to  his  Troubadours  of 
Dante,  there  came  a  gradual  change  over  the  mind  of  the 
Troubadour  about  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
and  "seeing  that  love  was  the  inspiring  force  to  good  deeds," 
the  later  Troubadours  gradually  dissociated  their  love  from  the 
object  which  had  aroused  it.  Among  them,  "as  among  the 
Minnesingers,  love  is  no  longer  sexual  passion,  it  is  rather  the 
motive  to  great  works,  to  self-surrender,  to  the  winning  an  hon- 
orable name  as  Courtier  and  Poet."  Mr.  Chaytor  then  quotes 
the  well  known  lines  from  Bernart  de  Ventadorn,  one  of  the 
Troubadours  to  whom  Dante  refers,  and  whose  works  Dante 
seems  to  have  read  with  special  attention  since  their  poems 
contain  similar  errors  of  mythology. 

"for  indeed  I  know 

Of  no  more  subtle  passion  under  heaven 
Than  is  the  maiden  passion  for  a  maid, 
Not  only  to  keep  down  the  base  in  man, 
But  teach  high  thought  and  amiable  words, 
And  courtliness  and  the  desire  of  fame, 
And  love  of  truth  and  all  that  makes  a  man." 

A  sentiment  surely  that  will  be  considered  as  true  now  as  it 
ever  was,  be  the  time  the  Thirteenth  Century  or  earlier  or  later, 
and  that  represents  the  best  solution  of  social  problems  that  has 
ever  been  put  forward — nature's  own  panacea  for  ills  that 
other  remedies  at  best  only  palliate. 

In  the  early  Nineteenth  Century  Carlyle  said  of  this  period 
what  we  may  well  repeat  here : 

"We  shall  suppose  that  this  Literary  Period  is  partially 
known  to  all  readers.  Let  each  recall  whatever  he  has  learned 
or  figures  regarding  it ;  represent  to  himself  that  brave  young 
heyday  of  Chivalry  and  Minstrelsy  when  a  stern  Barbarossa, 
a  stern  Lion-heart,  sang  sirventes,  and  with  the  hand  that  could 
wield  the  sword  and  sceptre  twanged  the  melodious  strings, 
when  knights-errant  tilted,  and  ladies'  eyes  rained  bright  influ- 
ences; and,  suddenly,  as  at  sunrise,  the  whole  earth  had' grown 


184  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

vocal  and  musical.  Then  truly  was  the  time  of  singing  come ; 
for  princes  and  prelates,  emperors  and  squires,  the  wise  and  the 
simple,  men,  women  and  children,  all  sang  and  rhymed  or  de- 
lighted in  hearing  it  done.  It  was  a  universal  noise  of  Song; 
as  if  the  Spring  of  Manhood  had  arrived,  and  warblings  from 
every  spray,  not,  indeed,  without  infinite  twitterings  also,  which, 
except  their  gladness,  had  no  music,  were  bidding  it  welcome." 

This  is  the  keynote  of  the  Century — song,  blithesome  and  gay 
as  the  birds,  solemn  and  harmonious  as  the  organ  tones  that 
accord  so  well  with  the  great  Latin  hymns — everywhere  song. 

"Believers,"  says  Tieck,  the  great  collector  of  Thirteenth 
Century  poetry,  "sang  of  Faith;  Lovers  of  Love;  Knights 
described  knightly  actions  and  battles;  and  loving,  believing 
knights  were  their  chief  audience.  The  Spring,  Beauty, 
Gaiety,  were  objects  that  could  never  tire;  great  duels  and 
deeds  of  arms  carried  away  every  hearer,  the  more  surely  the 
stronger  they  were  painted ;  and  as  the  pillars  and  dome  of  the 
Church  encircled  the  flock,  so  did  Religion,  as  the  Highest,  en- 
circle Poetry  and  Reality;  and  every  heart,  in  equal  love, 
humbled  itself  before  her." 

The  names  of  the  Meistersingers  are  well-known  to  musical 
lovers  at  least,  because  of  the  music  drama  of  that  name  and 
the  famous  war  of  the  Wartburg.  The  most  familiar  of  all  of 
them  is  doubtless  Walter  von  der  Vogelweide  who,  when  he  was 
asked  where  he  found  the  tuneful  melodies  of  his  songs,  said 
that  he  learned  them  from  the  birds.  Those  who  recall  Long- 
fellow's pretty  ballad  with  regard  to  Walter  and  his  leaving  all 
his  substance  to  feed  the  birds  over  his  grave  near  Nurem- 
berg's minster  towers,  will  not  find  it  surprising  that  this 
Meistersinger's  poetry  breathes  the  deepest  love  of  Nature, 
and  that  there  is  in  it  a  lyric  quality  of  joy  in  the  things  of 
Nature  that  we  are  apt  to  think  of  as  modern,  until  we  find  over 
and  over  again  in  these  bards,  that  the  spirit  of  the  woods  and 
of  the  fields  and  of  the  spring  time,  meant  as  much  for  them  as 
for  any  follower  of  the  Wordsworth  school  of  poetry  in  the 
more  conscious  after-time.  This  from  Walter  with  regard  to 
the  May  will  serve  to  illustrate  very  well  this  phase  of  his  work. 


LYRIC  POETRY.  185 

Gentle  May,  thou  showerest  fairly 

Gifts  afar  and  near; 
Clothest  all  the  woods  so  rarely, 

And  the  meadows  here; 
O'er  the  heath  new  colors  glow ; 
Flowers  and  clover  on  the  plain, 
Merry  rivals,  strive  amain 
Which  can  fastest  grow. 

Lady !  part  me  from  my  sadness, 

Love  me  while  'tis  May; 
Mine  is  but  a  borrowed  gladness 

If  thou  frown  alway; 
Look  around  and  smile  anew! 
All  the  world  is  glad  and  free; 
Let  a  little  joy  from  thee 
Fall  to  my  lot  too ! 

Walter  could  be  on  occasion,  however,  as  serious  as  any  of 
the  Meistersingers  and  is  especially  known  for  his  religious 
poems.  It  is  not  surprising  that  any  one  who  set  woman  on  so 
high  a  pedestal  as  did  Walter,  should  have  written  beautiful 
poems  to  the  Blessed  Virgin.  He  was  the  first,  so  it  is  said, 
to  express  the  sentiment:  "Woman,  God  bless  her,  by  that 
name,  for  it  is  a  far  nobler  name  than  lady."  Occasionally  he 
can  be  seriously  didactic  and  he  has  not  hesitated  even  to  ex- 
press some  sentiments  with  regard  to  methods  of  education. 
Amon^  other  things  he  discusses  the  question  as  to  whether 
children  should  be  whipped  or  not  in  the  process  of  education 
and  curiously  enough  takes  the  very  modern  view  that  whipping 
is  always  a  mistake.  In  this,  of  course,  he  disagrees  with  all 
the  practical  educators  of  his  time,  who  considered  the  rod  the 
most  effective  instrument  for  the  education  of  children  and 
strictly  followed  the  scriptural  injunction  about  sparing  the 
rod  and  spoiling  the  child.  Walter's  opinion  is  for  that  reason 
all  the  more  interesting: 

"Children  with  rod  ruling — 
Tis  the  worst  of  schooling. 
Who  is  honor  made  to  know, 
Him  a  word  seems  as  a  blow." 


186  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

The  birds  were  always  a  favorite  subject  for  poetic  inspira- 
tion on  the  part  of  the  Minnesingers.  Bird  music  rapt  poetic 
souls  into  ecstasies  in  which  the  passage  of  time  was  utterly 
unnoticed.  It  is  from  the  Thirteenth  Century  that  comes  the 
beautiful  legend  with  regard  to  the  monk  who,  having'  won- 
dered how  time  could  be  kept  from  dragging  in  Heaven,  was 
permitted  to  listen  to  the  song  of  a  bird  one  day  in  the  forest 
and  when  he  awoke  from  his  rapture  and  went  back  to  his 
convent  found  that  a  hundred  years  had  passed,  that  all  of  the 
monks  of  his  acquaintance  were  dead,  and  while  his  name  was 
found  on  the  rolls  of  the  monastery,  after  it  there  was  a  note 
that  he  had  disappeared  one  day  and  had  never  been  heard  of 
afterwards.  Almost  in  the  same  tenor  as  this  is  a  pretty  song 
from  Dietmar  von  Eist,  written  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century,  and  which  was  a  type  of  the  charming  songs 
that  were  to  be  so  characteristic  of  the  times : 

There  sat  upon  the  linden-tree 

A  bird,  and  sung  its  strain; 
So  sweet  it  sung  that  as  I  heard 

My  heart  went  back  again. 
It  went  to  one  remernber'd  spot, 

It  saw  the  rose-tree  grow, 
And  thought  again  the  thoughts  of  love, 

There  cherished  long  ago. 

A  thousand  years  to  me  it  seems 

Since  by  my  fair  I  sate; 
Yet  thus  to  be  a  stranger  long 

Is  not  my  choice,  but  fate ; 
Since  then  I  have  not  seen  the  flowers, 

Nor  heard  the  birds'  sweet  song ; 
My  joys  have  all  too  briefly  past, 

My  griefs  been  all  too  long. 

Hartman  von  Aue  was  a  contemporary  of  Walter's  and  is 
best  known  for  his  romantic  stories.  It  is  rather  ^curiously 
interesting  to  find  that  one  of  the  old  chroniclers  considers  it  a 
great  mark  of  distinction  that,  though  Hartman  was  a  knight, 
he  was  able  to  read  and  write  whatever  he  found  written  in 


L  YRIC  POETR  Y.  187 

books.  It  must  not  be  forgotten,  however,  that  not  all  of  these 
poets  could  read  and  write,  and  that  indeed  so  distinguished  a 
literary  man  as  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  the  author  of  Per- 
cival,  the  story  on  which  Wagner  founded  his  opera  of  Parsifal, 
could  neither  read  nor  write.  He  had  developed  a  very  won- 
derful memory  and  was  able  to  store  faithfully  his  poems  in  the 
course  of  their  composition  so  that  he  was  above  the  need  of 
pen  and  paper.  Hartman  is  most  famous  for  having  written 
the  story  of^Poor  Henry,  which  Longfellow  has  chosen  so 
effectively  for  his  Golden  Legend.  Hartman's  appreciation 
of  women  can  be  judged  from  the  following  lines,  which 
accord  her  an  equal  share  in  her  lord's  glory  because  of  her 
sufferings  in  prayer  at  home. 

Glory  be  unto  her  whose  word 

Sends  her  dear  lord  to  bitter  fight ; 

Although  he  conquer  by  his  sword, 
She  to  the  praise  has  equal  right ; 

He  with  the  sword  in  battle,  she  at  home  with 
prayer, 

Both  win  the  victory,  and  both  the  glory  share. 

Occasionally  one  finds,  as  we  have  said,  among  the  little 
songs  of  the  Minnesingers  of  the  time  such  tuneful  trifles  as 
could  be  included  very  appropriately  in  a  modern  collection  of 
vers  de  societe,  or  as  might  even  serve  as  a  love  message 
on  a  modern  valentine  or  a  Christmas  card.  The  surprise  of 
finding  such  things  at  such  a  time  will  justify  the  quotation  of 
one  of  them  from  Brother  Wernher,  who  owes  his  title  of  bro- 
ther not  to  his  membership  in  any  religious  order,  very  probably, 
but  to  the  fact  that  he  belonged  to  the  brotherhood  of  the  poets 
of  the  time. 

Since  creation  I  was  thine ; 

Now  forever  thou  art  mine. 

I  have  shut  thee  fast 

In  my  heart  at  last. 

I  have  dropped  the  key 

In  an  unknown  sea. 

Forever  must  thou  my  prisoner  be ! 


1 88  GREA  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Wolfram  von  Eschenbach  was  the  chief  of  a  group  of  poets 
who  at  the  close  of  the  Twelfth  and  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth 
centuries  gathered  about  the  Landgraf  Hermann  of  Thuringen 
in  his  court  on  the  Wartburg,  at  the  foot  of  which  lies  Eisen- 
ach, in  the  present  Grand  Duchy  of  Saxe- Weimar.  They 
shaped  tales  of  knightly  adventure,  blended  with  reflection, 
spiritual  suggestion,  and  a  grace  of  verse  that  represented 
the  best  culture  of  the  court,  and  did  not  address  itself  im- 
mediately to  the  people.  Wolfram  was  a  younger  son  of  one 
of  the  lower  noble  Bavarian  families  settled  at  Eschenbach, 
nine  miles  from  Ausbach,  in  Middle  Franconia.  He  had  a 
poor  little  home  of  his  own,  Wildenberg,  but  went  abroad  to 
seek  adventures  as  a  knight,  and  tell  adventures  as  a  poet  wel- 
come to  great  lords,  and  most  welcome  to  the  lavish  friend  of 
poets,  Hermann  of  Thuringen,  at  whose  court  on  the  Wartburg 
he  remained  twenty  years,  from  1195  to  1215,  in  which  latter 
year  his  "Parzival"  was  finished.  From  some  passages  in  his 
poem  it  may  safely  be  inferred  that  he  was  happily  married, 
and  had  children.  The  Landgraf  Hermann  died  in  1216,  and 
was  succeeded  by  Ludwig,  husband  of  St.  Elizabeth. 

We  cannot  ascribe  to  English  writers  alone  the  spiritualizing 
of  the  Grail  Legends,  when  there  is  Wolfram's  "Parzival" 
drawing  from  the  same  cycle  of  myths  a  noble  poem  of  the 
striving  to  bind  earthly  knighthood  to  the  ever-living  God. 
While  Gawain,  type  of  the  earthly  knight  wins  great  praise  in 
love  and  chivalry,  Parzival — Percival — finds  his  way  on  from 
childhood  up,  through  humble  searchings  of  the  spirit,  till  he 
is  ruler  in  the  kingdom  of  the  soul,  where  he  designs  that 
Lohengrin,  his  eldest  son,  shall  be  his  successor,  while  Kardeiss, 
his  younger  son,  has  rule  over  his  earthly  possessions. 

How  beautifully  the  Minnesingers  could  enter  into  the  spirit 
of  nature  and  at  the  same  time  how  much  the  spirit  of  Spring 
has  always  been  prone  to  appeal  to  poetic  sensibilities  may  be 
judged  from  the  following  song  of  Conrad  of  Kirchberg,  which 
is  translated  very  closely  and  in  the  same  meter  as  the  original 
old  high  German  poem.  It  is  very  evident  that  none  of  the 
spirit  of  Spring  was  lost  on  this  poet  of  the  olden  time,  nor  on 
the  other  hand  that  any  possibility  of  poetic  expression  was 
missed  by  him.  There  is  a  music  in  the  lilt  of  the  verselets, 


LYRIC  POETRY.  189 

eminently  suggestive  of  the  lyric  effect  that  the  new  birth  of 
things  had  on  the  poet  himself  and  that  he  wished  to  convey 
to  his  readers.  Of  this,  however,  every  one  must  judge  for 
himself  and  so  we  give  the  poem  as  it  may  be  found  in  Roscoe's 
edition  of  Sismondi's  Literature  of  the  South  of  Europe. 

May,  sweet  May,  again  is  come ; 
May,  that  frees  the  land  from  gloom. 
Up,  then,  children,  we  will  go 
Where  the  blooming  roses  grow, 
In  a  joyful  company 
We  the  bursting  flowers  will  see ; 
Up !  your  festal  dress  prepare ! 
Where  gay  hearts  are  meeting,  there 
May  hath  pleasures  most  inviting 
Heart,  and  sight,  and  ear  delighting: 
Listen  to  the  bird's  sweet  song, 
Hark !  how  soft  it  floats  along ! 
Courtly  dames  our  pleasures  share, 
Never  saw  I  May  so  fair ; 
Therefore,  dancing  will  we  go : 
Youths  rejoice,  the  flowrets  blow ; 

Sing  ye !  join  the.  chorus  gay ! 

Hail  this  merry,  merry  May! 

At  least  as  beautiful  in  their  tributes  to  their  lady  loves  and 
their  lyric  descriptions  of  the  beauties  of  Spring,  were  the 
Troubadours  whose  tuneful  trifles,  sometimes  deserving  of 
much  more  serious  consideration  than  the  application  of  such 
a  term  to  them  would  seem  to  demand,  have  come  down  to  us 
though  the  centuries.  One  of  the  best  known  of  these  is 
Arnaud  de  Marveil,  who  was  born  in  very  humble  circumstances 
but  who  succeeded  in  raising  himself  by  his  poetic  genius  to  be 
the  companion  of  ruling  princes  and  the  friend  of  the  high 
nobility.  Among  the  provencals  he  has  been  called  the  great 
Master  of  Love,  though  this  is  a  name  which  Petrarch  reserves 
especially  for  Arnaud  Daniel,  while  he  calls  Marveil  the  less 
famous  of  the  Arnauds.  An  example  of  his  work  as  the  Poet 
of  Love,  that  is  typical  of  what  is  usually  considered  to  have 


190  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

been  the  favorite  mode  of  the  Troubadour  poets  runs  as  fol- 
lows: 

All  I  behold  recalls  the  memory 
Of  her  I  love.    The  freshness  of  the  hour 
.    Th'  enamell'd  fields,  the  many  coloured  flower, 
Speaking  of  her,  move  me  to  melody. 
Had  not  the  poets,  with  their  courtly  phrase, 

Saluted  many  a  fair  of  meaner  worth, 
I  could  not  now  have  render'd  thee  the  praise 

So  justly  due,  of  "Fairest  of  the  Earth." 
To  name  thee  thus  had  been  to  speak  thy  name, 
And  waken,  o'er  thy  cheek,  the  blush  of  modest  shame." 

An  example  of  the  love  of  nature  which  characterizes  some 
of  Arnaud  de  Marveil's  work  will  serve  to  show  how 
thoroughly  he  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  spring-time  and 
how  much  all  the  sights  and  sounds  of  nature  found  an  echo 
in  his  poetic  spirit.  The  translation  of  this  as  of  the  preceding 
specimen  from  Arnaud  is  taken  from  the  English  edition  of 
the  Historical  View  of  the  Literature  of  the  South  of  Europe 
by  Sismondi,  and  this  translation  we  owe  to  Thomas  Roscoe, 
the  well  known  author  of  the  life  of  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent, 
who  considering  that  Sismondi  does  not  furnish  enough  of 
specimens  of  this  Troubadour  poet,  inserts  the  following  verses, 
for  the  translation  of  which  he  acknowledges  himself  indebted 
to  the  kindness  of  friends,  a  modest  concealment  doubtless  of 
his  own  work : 

Oh !  how  sweet  the  breeze  of  April, 

Breathing  soft  as  May  draws  near ! 
While,  through  nights  of  tranquil   beauty, 

Songs  of  gladness  meet  the  ear : 
Every  bird  his  well-known  language 

Uttering  in  the  morning's  pride, 
Revellhig  in  joy  and  gladness 

By  his  happy  partner's  side. 

When,  around  me,  all  is  smiling, 
When  to  life  the  young  birds  spring, 


LYRIC  POETRY.  191 

Thoughts  of  love,  I  cannot  hinder, 

Come,  my  heart  inspiriting — 
Nature,  habit,  both  incline  me 

In  such  joy  to  bear  my  part: 
With  such  sounds  of  bliss  around  me 

Could  I  wear  a  sadden'd  heart? 

His  description  of  his  lady  love  is  another  example  of  his 
worship  of  nature  in  a  different  strain,  which  serves  to  show 
that  a  lover's  exaggeration  of  the  qualities  of  his  lady  is  not 
a  modern  development  of  la  belle  passion. 

Fairer  than  the  far-famed  Helen, 

Lovelier  than  the  flow'rets  gay, 
Snow-white  teeth,  and  lips  truth-telling, 

Heart  as  open  as  the  day ; 
Golden  hair,  and  fresh  bright  roses — 

Heaven,  who  formed  a  thing  so  fair, 
Knows  that  never  yet  another 

Lived,  who  can  with  thee  compare. 

A  single  stanza  from  a  love-song  by  Bertrand  De  Born  will 
show  better  than  any  amount  of  critical  appreciation  how 
beautifully  he  can  treat  the  more  serious  side  of  love.  While 
the  Troubadours  are  usually  said  to  have  sung  their  love  strains 
in  less  serious  vein  than  their  German  brother  poets  of  the 
North,  this  has  the  ring  of  tenderness  and  truth  about  it  and  < 

yet  is  not  in  these  qualities  very  different  from  others  of  his 
songs  that  are  well  known.    The  translation  we  have  chosen        "•-  *V;; 
is  that  made  by  Roscoe  who  has  rendered  a  number  of  the 
songs  of  the  Troubadours  into  English  verse  that  presents  an 
excellent  equivalent  of  the  original.    Bertrand  is  insisting  with 
his  lady-love  that  she  must  not  listen  to  the  rumors  she  may--.-*   ; 
hear  from  others  with  regard  to  his  faithfulness. 

I  cannot  hide  from  thee  how  much  I  fear 

The  whispers  breathed  by  flatterers  in  thine  ear 

Against  my  faith.    But  turn  not,  oh,  I  pray ! 
That  heart  so  true,  so  faithful,  so  sincere, 
So  humble  and  so  frank,  to  me  so  dear, 

Oh,  lady!  turn  it  not  from  me  away. 


192  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

At  times  one  is  surprised  to  find  pretty  tributes  to  nature 
even  in  the  midst  of  songs  that  are  devoted  to  war.  The  two 
things  that  were  nearest  the  hearts  of  these  Troubadour  poets 
were  war  and  their  lady-loves,  but  the  beauties  of  nature  be- 
came mixed  up  not  only  with  their  love  songs  but  also  with 
their  battle  hymns,  or  at  least  with  their  ardent  descriptions  of 
military  preparations  and  the  glories  of  war.  An  excellent 
example  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  following  stanza  written 
by  William  of  Saint  Gregory,  a  Troubadour  who  is  best  known 
for  his  songs  of  war  rather  than  of  tenderness. 

The  beautiful  spring  delights  me  well, 

When  flowers  and  leaves  are  growing; 
And  it  pleases  my  heart  to  hear  the  swell 
Of  the  birds'  sweet  chorus  flowing 

In  the  echoing  wood ; 
And  I  love  to  see  all  scattered  around 
Pavilions  and  tents  on  martial  ground ; 

And  my  spirit  finds  it  good 
To  see  on  the  level  plains  beyond 
Gay  knights  and  steeds  caparisoned. 

Occasionally  the  Troubadours  indulge  in  religious  poetry 
though  usually  not  of  a  mystical  or  profoundly  devotional 
character.  Even  the  famous  Peyrols,  who  is  so  well  known 
for  his  love  songs,  sometimes  wandered  into  religious  poetry 
that  was  not  unworthy  to  be  placed  beside  his  lyric  effusions  on 
other  topics.  Peyrols  is  best  known  perhaps  for  his  lamenta- 
tions over  King  Richard  the  Lion  Heart's  fate,  for  he  had  been 
with  that  monarch  on  the  crusade,  and  like  most  of  the  Trou- 
badours who  went  with  the  army,  drank  in  deep  admiration 
for  the  poetic  king.  After  his  visit  to  the  Holy  Land  on  this 
occasion  one  stanza  of  his  song  in  memory  of  that  visit  runs 
as  follows  :* 

1  have  seen  the  Jordan  river, 

I  have  seen  the  holy  grave. 
Lord !  to  thee  my  thanks  I  render 

For  the  joys  thy  goodness  gave, 

*  Translated  by  Roscoe. 


L  YRIC  POETR  Y.  193 

Showing  to  my  raptured  sight 

The  spot  whereon  thou  saw'st  the  light. 

Vessel  good  and  favoring  breezes, 

Pilot,  trusty,  soon  shall  we 
Once  more  see  the  towers  of  Marseilles 

Rising  o'er  the  briny  sea. 
Farewell,  Acre,  farewell,  all, 
Of  Temple  or  of  Hospital : 

Now,  alas !  the  world's  decaying. 

When  shall  we  once  more  behold 
Kings  like  lion-hearted  Richard, 

France's  monarch,  stout  and  bold  ? 


TOWER  OF  THE  SCALIGERS 
(VERONA) 


194  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XII 
GREAT  LATIN  HYMNS  AND  CHURCH  MUSIC. 


One  of  the  most  precious  bequests  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
to  all  the  succeeding  centuries  is  undoubtedly  the  great  Latin 
hymns.  These  sublime  religious  poems,  comparable  only  to 
the  Hebrew  psalms  for  their  wondrous  expression  of  the  awe 
and  devotion  of  religious  feeling,  present  the  beginnings  of 
rhymed  poetry,  yet  they  have  been  acclaimed  by  competent  mod- 
ern critics  as  among  the  greatest  poems  that  ever  came  from  the 
mind  of  man.  They  come  to  us  from  this  period  and  were  com- 
posed, most  of  them  at  least,  during  the  Thirteenth  Century 
itself,  a  few,  shortly  before  it,  though  all  of  them  received 
during  this  century  the  stamp  of  ecclesiastical  and  popular 
approval,  which  made  them  for  many  centuries  afterward  the 
principal  medium  of  the  expression  of  congregational  devotion 
and  the  exemplar  and  incentive  for  vernacular  poetry.  It  is 
from  these  latter  standpoints  that  they  deserve  the  attention  of 
all  students  of  literature  quite  apart  from  their  significance 
as  great  expressions  of  the  mind  of  these  wondrous  generations. 

These  Latin  hymns  have  sometimes  been  spoken  of  with  per- 
haps a  certain  degree  of  contempt  as  "rhymed  Latin  poetry,"  as 
if  the  use  of  rhyme  in  conjunction  with  Latin  somehow  lowered 
the  dignity  of  the  grand  old  tongue  in  which  Cicero  wrote 
his  graceful  periods  and  Horace  sang  his  tuneful  odes.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  far  from  detracting  from  the  beauties  of 
Latin  expression,  these  hymns  have  added  new  laurels  to  the 
glory  of  the  language  and  have  shown  the  wonderful  possibili- 
ties of  the  Roman  speech  in  the  hands  of  generations  long 
after  the  classical  period.  If  they  served  no  other  purpose  than 
to  demonstrate  beyond  cavil  how  profoundly  the  scholars  of 
this  generation  succeeded  in  possessing  themselves  of  the 
genius  of  the  Latin  language,  they  would  serve  to  contradict 
the  foolish  critics  who  talk  of  the  education  of  the  period  as 
superficial,  or  as  negligent  of  everything  but  scholastic  phil- 
osophy and  theology. 


GREA  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  195 

At  least  one  distinguished  philologist,  Professor  F.  A. 
March,  who  has  now  for  the  better  part  of  half  a  century 
occupied  the  chair  of  comparative  philology  at  Lafayette  Col- 
lege, does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  Latin  hymns  represent  an 
expression  of  the  genius  of  the  Latin  people  and  language,  more 
characteristic  than  the  classical  poetry  even  of  the  golden  or 
silver  ages.  "These  hymns,"  he  says,  "were  the  first  original 
poetry  of  the  people  in  the  Latin  language,  unless  perhaps  those 
Latin  critics  may  be  right  who  think  they  find  in  Livy  a  prose 
rendering  of  earlier  ballads.  The  so-called  classic  poetry  was 
an  echo  of  Greece,  both  in  substance  and  in  form.  The  matter 
and  meters  were  both  imitated  and  the  poems  were  composed 
for  the  lovers  of  Grecian  art  in  the  Roman  Court.  It  did  not 
spring  from  the  people,  but  the  Christian  hymns  were  proper 
folk  poetry,  the  Bible  of  the  people — their  Homeric  poems. 
Their  making  was  not  so  much  speech  as  action.  They  were 
in  substance  festive  prayers,  the  simplest  rythmic  offering  of 
thanks  and  praise  to  the  Giver  of  Light  and  of  rest  both 
natural  and  spiritual,  at  morning  and  evening  and  at  other 
seasons,  suited  to  the  remembrance  and  rythmical  rehearsal  of 
the  truths  of  the  Bible."  Prof.  March's  opinion  has  been 
echoed  by  many  another  enthusiastic  student  of  these  wonder- 
ful hymns.  It  is  only  those  who  do  not  know  them  who  fail  to 
grow  enthusiastic  about  them. 

This  of  itself  would  stamp  these  great  poems  as  worthy  of 
careful  study.  There  is,  however,  an  additional  reason  for  mod- 
ern interest  in  them.  These  hymns  were  sung  by  the  whole  con- 
gregation at  the  many  services  that  they  attended  in  the  medi- 
eval period.  In  this  regard  it  seems  well  to  recall,  that  it  was  the 
custom  to  go  to  church  much  oftener  then  than  at  present. 
Besides  the  Sundays  there  were  many  holy  days  of  obligation, 
that  is,  religious  festivals  on  which  attendance  at  Church  was 
obligatory,  and  in  addition  a  certain  number  of  days  of  devo- 
tion on  which,  because  of  special  reverence  for  some  particular 
saint,  or  in  celebration  of  some  event  in  the  life  of  the  Lord  or 
his  saints,  the  people  of  special  parts  of  the  country  found 
themselves  drawn  to  attendance  on  church  services.    It  seems 
probable  that  instead  of  the  sixty  or  so  times  a  year  that  is  now 
obligatory,  people  went  to  Church  during  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 


196  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tury  more  than  a  hundred  times  in  the  .year.  Twice  a  week 
then,  at  least,  there  was  the  uplifting  cultural  influence  of  this 
congregational  singing  of  wonderful  hymns  that  are  among  the 
greatest  poems  ever  written  and  that  belong  to  literature  of  the 
very  highest  order.  The  educational  value  of  such  intimate 
contact  with  what  is  best  in  literary  expression  could  scarcely 
fail  to  have  a  distinct  effect  upon  the  people.  It  is  idle  to  say 
that  the  hymns  being  in  Latin  they  were  not  understood,  since 
the  language  of  them  was  close  akin  to  the  spoken  tongues,  the 
subjects  were  eminently  familiar  mysteries  of  religion  and 
constant  repetition  and  frequent  explanation  must  have  led  to 
a  very  general  comprehension  even  by  the  least  educated 
classes.  For  anyone  with  any  pretension  to  education  they  must 
have  been  easy  to  understand,  since  Latin  was  practically  a 
universal  language. 

It  is  not  always  realized  by  the  students  whose  interests  have 
been  mainly  confined  to  modern  literature,  in  what  estimation 
these  Latin  hymns  have  been  held  by  those  who  are  in  the  best 
position  to  be  able  to  judge  critically  of  their  value  as  poetry. 
Take  for  example  the  Dies  Irae,  confessedly  the  greatest  of 
them,  and  it  will  be  found  that  many  of  the  great  poets  and 
literary  men  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  have  counted  it  among 
their  favorite  poems.  Such  men  as  Goethe,  Friedrich  and 
August  Schlegel,  Scott,  Milman  and  Archbishop  Trench  were 
enthusiastic  in  its  praise;  while  such  geniuses  as  Dryden, 
Johnson  and  Jeremy  Taylor,  and  the  musicians  Mozart  and 
Hayden,  avowed  supreme  admiration  for  it.  Herder,  Fichte 
and  August  Schlegel  besides  Crashaw,  Drummond,  Roscom- 
mon,  Trench  and  Macaulay  gave  the  proof  of  their  appreciation 
of  the  great  Thirteenth  Century  hymn  by  devoting  themselves 
to  making  translations  of  it,  and  Goethe's  use  of  it  in  Faust  and 
Scott's  in  the  Lay  of  the  Last  Minstrel,  show  how  much  poets, 
whose  sympathies  were  not  involved  in  its  religious  aspects, 
were  caught  by  its  literary  and  esthetic  merit. 

In  very  recent  times  the  Latin  hyms  have  been  coming  more 
to  their  own  again  and  such  distinguished  critics  as  Prof.  Henry 
Morley,  and  Prof.  George  Saintsbury,  have  not  hesitated  to 
express  their  critical  appreciation  of  these  hymns  as  great 


GREA  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  197 

literature.    Prof.  Saintsbury  says  in  his  volume  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  literature  :* 

"It  will  be  more  convenient  to  postpone  to  a  later  chapter 
of  this  volume  a  consideration  of  the  exact  way  in  which  Latin 
sacred  poetry  affected  the  prosody  of  the  vernacular;  but  it  is 
well  here  to  point  out  that  almost  all  the  finest  and  most  fam- 
ous examples  of  the  medieval  hymns,  with  perhaps  the  sole 
exception  of  the  Veni  Sancte  Spiritus,  date  from  the  Twelfth 
and  Thirteenth  centuries.  Ours  (that  is,  from  this  period) 
are  the  stately  rhythms  of  Adam  of  St.  Victor,  and  the  softer 
ones  of  St.  Bernard  the  Greater.  It  was  at  this  time  that 
Jacopone  da  Todi,  in  the  intervals  of  his  eccentric  vernacular 
exercises,  was  inspired  to  write  the  Stabat  Mater.  From  this 
time  comes  that  glorious  descant  of  Bernard  of  Morlaix,  in 
which,  the  more  its  famous  and  very  elegant  English  para- 
phrase is  read  beside  it  (Jerusalem  the  Golden),  the  more  does 
the  greatness  and  the  beauty  of  the  original  appear. 

"And  from  this  time  comes  the  greatest  of  all  hymns,  and 
one  of  the  greatest  of  all  poems,  the  Dies  Irae.  There  have 
been  attempts — more  than  one  of  them — to  make  out  that  the 
Dies  Irae  is  no  such  wonderful  thing  after  all ;  attempts  which 
are,  perhaps,  the  extreme  examples  of  that  cheap  and  despicable 
paradox  which  thinks  to  escape  the  charge  of  blind  docility  by 
the  affectation  of  heterodox  independence.  The  judgment  of 
the  greatest  (and  not  always  of  the  most  pious)  men  of  letters 
of  modern  times  may  confirm  those  who  are  uncomfortable 
without  authority  in  a  different  opinion.  Fortunately  there  is 
not  likely  ever  to  be  lack  of  those  who,  authority  or  no  author- 
ity, in  youth  and  in  age,  after  much  reading  or  without  much, 
in  all  time  of  their  tribulation.and  in  all  time  of  their  wealth, 
will  hold  these  wonderful  triplets,  be  they  Thomas  of  Celano's 
or  another's,  as  nearly  or  quite  the  most  perfect  wedding  of 
sound  to  sense  that  they  know." 

This  seems  almost  the  limit  of  praise  but  Prof.  Saintsbury 
can  say  even  more  than  this :  "It  would  be  possible,  indeed,  to 

*The  Flourishing  of  Romance  and  the  Rise  of  Allegory,  Volume  II. 
of.  Periods  of  European  Literature,  Edited  by  George  Saintsbury,  New 
York,  Scribners,  1899. 


198  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

illustrate  a  complete  dissertation  on  the  methods  of  expression 
in  serious  poetry  from  the  fifty-one  lines  of  the  Dies  Irae. 
Rhyme,  alliteration,  cadence,  and  adjustment  of  vowel  and 
consonant  values — all  these  things  receive  perfect  expression  in 
it,  or,  at  least,  in  the  first  thirteen  stanzas,  for  the  last  four  are 
a  little  inferior.  It  is  quite  astonishing  to  reflect  upon  the  care- 
ful art  or  the  felicitous  accident  of  such  a  line  as : 
• 

Tuba  minim  spargens  sonuiii, 

with  the  thud  of  the  trochee  falling  in  each  instance  in  a  dif- 
ferent vowel ;  and  still  more  on  the  continuous  sequence  of  five 
stanzas,  from  Judex  ergo  t.o  non  sit  cassus,  in  which  not  a 
word  could  be  displaced  or  replaced  by  another  without  loss. 
The  climax  of  verbal  harmony,  corresponding  to  and  express- 
ing religious  passion  and  religious  awe,  is  reached  in  the  last — 

Quaerens  me  sedisti  lassus, 
Redemisti  crucem  passus : 
Tantus  labor  non  sit  cassus ! 

where  the  sudden  change  from  the  dominant  e  sounds  (except 
in  the  rhyme  foot)  of  the  first  two  lines  to  the  a's  of  the  last 
is  simply  miraculous  and  miraculously  assisted  by  what  may 
be  called  the  internal  sub-rhyme  of  sedisti  and  redemisti.  This 
latter  effect  can  rarely  be  attempted  without  a  jingle :  there  is 
no  jingle  here,  only  an  ineffable  melody.  After  the  Dies  Irae, 
no  poet  could  say  that  any  effect  of  poetry  was,  as  far  as  sound 
goes,  unattainable,  though  few  could  have  hoped  to  equal  it, 
and  perhaps  no  one  except  Dante  and  Shakespeare  has  fully 
done  so." 

Higher  praise  than  this  could  scarcely  be  given  and  it  comes 
from  an  acknowledged  authority,  whose  interests  are  moreover 
in  secular  rather  than  religious  literature,  and  whose  enthusi- 
astic praise  is  therefore  all  the  more  striking.  Here  in  Amer- 
ica, Schaff,  whose  critical  judgment  in  religious  literature  is 
unquestionable  and  whose  sympathies  with  the  old  church  and 
her  hymns  were  not  as  deep  as  if  he  had  been  a  Roman  Catho- 
lic, has  been  quite  as  unstinted  in  laudation. 

"This  marvelous  hymn  is  the  acknowledged  masterpiece  of 
Latin  poetry,  and  the  most  sublime  of  all  uninspired  hymns. 


GREA  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  199 

.  .  The  secret  of  its  irresistible  power  lies  in  the  awful  gran- 
deur of  the  theme,  the  intense  earnestness  and  pathos  of  the 
poet,  the  simple  majesty  and  solemn  music  of  its  language,  the 
stately  meter,  the  triple  rhyme,  and  the  vowel  assonances, 
chosen  in  striking  adaptation  to  the  sense — all  combining  to 
produce  an  overwhelming  effect,  as  if  we  heard  the  final  crash 
of  the  universe,  the  commotion  of  the  opening  graves,  the  trum- 
pet of  the  archangel  summoning  the  quick  and  the  dead,  and 
saw  the  'king  of  tremendous  majesty'  seated  on  the  throne  of 
justice  and  of  mercy,  and  ready  to  dispense  everlasting  life  and 
everlasting  woe." 

Neale  says  of  Thomas  Aquinas'  great  hymn  the  Pange  Lin- 
gua :  "This  hymn  contests  the  second  place  among  those  of  the 
Western  Church,  with  the  'Vexilla  Regis/  the  'Stabat  Mater,' 
the  'Jesu  Dulcis  Memoria,'  the  'Ad  Regias  Agni  Dapes,'  the 
'Ad  Supernam,'  and  one  or  two  others,  leaving  the  'Dies  Irae' 
in  its  unapproachable  glory,"  thus  furnishing  another  precious 
testimony  to  the  hymn  we  have  been  discussing,  which  indeed 
only  needs  to  be  read  to  be  appreciated,  since  it  will  inevitably 
tempt  to  successive  readings  and  these  bring  with  them  ever 
and  ever  increasing  admiration,  showing  in  this  more  than  in 
any  other  way  that  it  is  a  work  of  sublime  genius. 

With  regard  to  rhyme  particularly  the  triumph  of  zrt  and 
the  influence  of  the  Latin  hymns  is  undoubted.  This  latest 
beauty  of  poetry  reached  its  perfection  of  expression  in  the 
Latin  hymns.  It  is  rather  curious  to  trace  its  gradual  develop- 
ment. It  constitutes  the  only  feature  of  literature  which  appar- 
ently did  not  come  to  us  from  the  East.  The  earlier  specimens 
of  poetry  of  which  we  know  anything  among  the  Oriental 
nations  other  than  the  Hebrews,  are  beautiful  examples  of  the 
possibilities  of  rhythm  and  the  beginnings  of  meter.  As  poetry 
goes  westward  meter  becomes  as  important  as  rhythm  in  poetry 
and  these  two  qualities  differentiated  it  from  prose.  Both  of 
these  literary  modes,  however,  are  eastern  in  origin.  Rhyme 
comes  from  the  distant  West  and  seems  to  have  originated  in 
the  alliteration  invented  by  the  Celtic  bards.  The  vowel  asso- 
nance was  after  a  time  completed  by  the  addition  of  consonantal 
assonance  and  then  the  invention  of  rhyme  was  completed. 
The  first  fully  rhymed  hymns  seem  to  have  been  written  by  the 


200  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Irish  monks  and  carried  over  to  the  Continent  by  them  on  their 
Christianizing  expeditions,  after  the  irruption  of  the  barbarians 
had  obliterated  the  civilization  of  Europe.  During  the  Tenth 
and  Eleventh  centuries  rhyme  developed  mainly  in  connection 
with  ecclesiastical  poetry.  During  the  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth 
centuries  it  reached  an  acme  of  evolution  which  has  never  been 
surpassed  during  all  the  succeeding  generations. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that,  because  so  much  attention  is 
given  to  the  Dies  Irae,  this  constitutes  the  only  supremely  great 
hymn  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  There  are  at  least  five  or  six 
others  that  well  deserve  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath. 
One  of  them,  the  famous  Stabat  Mater  of  Jacopone  da  Todi, 
has  been  considered  by  some  critics  as  quite  as  beautiful  as  the 
Dies  Irae  in  poetic  expression,  though  below  it  as  poetry  be- 
cause of  the  lesser  sublimity  of  its  subject.  Certainly  no  more 
marvelously  poetic  expression  of  all  that  is  saddest  in  human 
sorrow  has  ever  been  put  into  words,  than  that  which  is  to  be 
found  in  these  stanzas  of  the  Franciscan  Monk  who  had  him- 
self known  all  the  depths  of  human  sorrow  and  trial.  Most 
people  know  the  opening  stanzas  of  it  well  enough  to  scarce 
need  their  presentation  and  yet  it  is  from  the  poem  itself,  and 
not  from  any  critical  appreciation  of  it,  that  its  greatness  must 
be  judged. 

Stabat  mater  dolorosa 

Juxta  crucem  lacrymosa, 
Dum  pendebat  films, 

Cuius  animan  gementem, 

Contristantem  et  dolentem 
Pertransivit  gladius. 

O  quam  tristis  et  afflicta 
Fuit  ilia  benedicta 

Mater  unigeniti, 
Quae  mcerebat  et  dolebat 
Et  tremebat,  dum  videbat 

Nati  poenas  inclyti. 

Quis  est  homo,  qui  non  fleret, 
Matrem  Christi  si  viderett 
In  tanto  supplicio  ? 


MADO.VXA  AND  CHILD  CCAMPO  SANTO,  PISA,  GIOV.  PIS.) 


GREA  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  201 

Quis  non  posset  contristari, 
Piam  matrem  contemplari 
Dolentem  cum  filio! 

As  in  the  case  of  the  Dies  Irae  there  have  been  many  trans- 
lations of  the  Stabat  Mater,  most  of  them  done  by  poets  whose 
hearts  were  in  their  work  and  who  were  accomplishing  their 
purpose  as  labors  of  love.  While  we  realize  how  many  beauti- 
ful translations  there  are,  it  is  almost  pitiful  to  think  what  poor 
English  versions  are  sometimes  used  in  the  devotional  exer- 
cises of  the  present  day.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  transla- 
tions is  undoubtedly  that  by  Denis  Florence  MacCarthy,  who 
has  been  hailed  as  probably  the  best  translator  into  English  of 
foreign  poetry  that  our  generation  has  known,  and  whose  trans- 
lations of  Calderon  present  the  greatest  of  Spanish  poets,  in  a 
dress  as  worthy  of  the  original  as  it  is  possible  for  a  poet  to 
have  in  a  foreign  tongue.  MacCarthy  has  succeeded  in  follow- 
ing the  intricate  rhyme  plan  of  the  Stabat  with  a  perfection  that 
would  be  deemed  almost  impossible  in  our  harsher  English, 
which  does  not  readily  yield  itself  to  double  rhymes  and  which 
permits  frequency  of  rhyme  as  a  rule  only  at  the  sacrifice  of 
vigor  of  expression.  The  first  three  stanzas,  however,  of  the 
Stabat  Mater  will  serve  to  show  how  well  MacCarthy  accom- 
plished his  difficult  task : 

By  the  cross,  on  which  suspended, 

With  his  bleeding  hands  extended, 
Hung  that  Son  she  so  adored, 

Stood  the  mournful  Mother  weeping, 

She  whose  heart,  its  silence  keeping, 
Grief  had  cleft  as  with  a  sword. 

O,  that  Mother's  sad  affliction — 

Mother  of  all  benediction — 
Of  the  sole-begotten  One; 

Oh,  the  grieving,  sense-bereaving, 

Of  her  heaving  breast,  perceiving 
The  dread  sufferings  of  her  Son. 

What  man  is  there  so  unfeeling, 
Who,  his  heart  to  pity  steeling, 

Could  behold  that  sight  unmoved  ? 


202  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Could   Christ's  Mother  see  there  weeping, 
See  the  pious  Mother  keeping 
Vigil  by  the  Son  she  loved? 

A  very  beautiful  translation  in  the  meter  of  the  original 
was  also  made  by  the  distinguished  Irish  poet,  Aubrey  de  Vere. 
The  last  two  stanzas  of  this  translation  have  been  considered 
as  perhaps  the  most  charmingly  effective  equivalent  in  English 
for  Jacopone's  wonderfully  devotional  termination  that  has 
ever  been  written. 

May  his  wounds  both  wound  and  heal  me ; 
His  blood  enkindle,  cleanse,  anneal  me; 

Be  his  cross  my  hope  and  stay : 
Virgin,  when  the  mountains  quiver, 
From  that  flame  which  burns  for  ever, 

Shield  me  on  the  judgment-day. 

Christ,  when  he  that  shaped  me  calls  me, 
When  advancing  death  appalls  me, 

Through  her  prayer  the  storm  make  calm : 
When  to  dust  my  dust  returneth 
Save  a  soul  to  thee  that  yearneth ; 

Grant  it  thou  the  crown  and  palm. 

Even  distinguished  professors  of  philosophy  and  theology 
occasionally  indulged  themselves  in  the  privilege  of  writing 
these  Latin  hymns  and,  what  is  more  surprising,  succeeded  in 
making  poetry  of  a  very  high  order.  At  least  two  of  the  most 
distinguished  professors  in  these  branches  at  the  University 
of  Paris  in  the  latter  half  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  must  be 
acknowledged  as  having  written  hymns  that  are  confessedly 
immortal,  not  because  of  any  canonical  usage  that  keeps  them 
alive,  but  because  they  express  in  very  different  ways,  in  won- 
drously  beautiful  language  some  of  the  sublimest  religious 
thoughts  of  their  time.  These  two  are  St.  Bonaventure,  the 
Franciscan,  and  St.  Thomas  of  Aquin,  the  Dominican.  St. 
Bonaventure's  hymns  on  the  Passion  and  Cross  of  Christ  repre- 
sent what  has  been  most  beautifully  sung  on  these  subjects  in  all 
the  ages.  St.  Thomas'  poetic  work  centers  around  the  Blessed 
Sacrament  in  whose  honor  he  was  so  ardent  and  so  devoted 


GREA  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  203 

that  the  composition  of  the  office  for  its  feast  was  confided  to 
him  by  the  Pope.  The  hymns  he  wrote,  far  from  being  the 
series  of  prosy  theological  formulas  that  might  have  been  ex- 
pected perhaps  under  such  circumstances,  are  great  contri- 
butions to  a  form  of  literature  which  contains  more  gems  of 
purest  ray  in  its  collection  than  almost  any  other.  St.  Thomas' 
poetic  jewels  shine  with  no  borrowed  radiance,  and  their  efful- 
gence is  not  cast  into  shadow  e.ven  by  the  greatest  of  their  com- 
panion pieces  among  the  Latin  hymns  of  a  wonderfully  produc- 
tive century.  Neale's  tribute  to  one  of  them  has  already  been 
quoted  in  an  earlier  part  of  this  chapter. 

It  has  indeed  been  considered  almost  miraculous,  that  this 
profoundest  of  thinkers  should  have  been  able  to  attain  within 
the  bounds  of  rhyme  and  rhythm,  the  accurate  expression  of 
some  of  the  most  intricate  theological  thoughts  that  have  ever 
been  expressed,  and  yet  should  have  accomplished  his  purpose 
with  a  clarity  of  language,  a  simplicity  and  directness  of  words, 
a  poetic  sympathy  of  feeling,  and  an  utter  devotion,  that  make 
his  hymns  great  literature  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word.  One 
of  them  at  least,  the  Pange  Lingua  Gloriosi,  has  been  in  con- 
stant use  111  the  church  ever  since  his  time,  and  its  two  last 
stanzas  beginning  with  Tantum  Ergo  Sacramentum,  are  per- 
haps the  most  familiar  of  all  the  Latin  hymns.  Few  of  those 
most  familiar  with  it  realize  its  place  in  literature,  the  greatness 
of  its  author,  or  its  own  marvelous  poetic  merits. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  at  the  very  time  when  these 
hymns  were  most  popular  the  modern  languages  were  just  as- 
suming shape.  Even  at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  none 
of  them  had  reached  anything  like  the  form  that  it  was  to  con- 
tinue to  hold,  except  perhaps  the  Italian  and  to  some  extent  the 
Spanish.  When  Dante  wrote  his  Divine  Comedy  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  he  was  tempted  to  use  the 
Latin  language,  the  common  language  of  all  the  scholars  of 
his  day,  and  the  language  ordinarily  used  for  any  ambitious 
literary  project  for  nearly  a  century  later.  It  will  not  be  for- 
gotten that  when  Petrarch  in  the  Fourteenth  Century  wrote 
his  epic,  Africa,  on  which  he  expected  his  fame  as  a  poet  to 
rest,  he  preferred  to  use  the  Latin  language.  Fortunately 
Dante  was  large  enough  of  mind  to  realize,  that  the  vulgar 


204  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tongue  of  the  Italians  would  prove  the  best  instrument  for  the 
expression  of  the  thoughts  he  wished  to  communicate,  and  so 
he  cast  the  Italian  language  into  the  mold  in  which  it  has  prac- 
tically ever  since  remained. 

His  very  hesitation,  however,  shows  how  incomplete  as  yet 
were  these  modern  languages  considered  by  the  scholars  who 
used  them.  It  was  at  this  very  formative  period,  however,  that 
the  people  on  whose  use  of  the  nascent  modern  languages  their 
future  character  depended,  were  having  dinned  into  their  ears 
in  the  numerous  church  services,  the  great  Latin  hymns  with 
their  wonderful  finish  of  expression.  Undoubtedly  one  of  the 
most  effective  factors  of  whatever  of  sweetness  there  is  in  the 
modern  tongues,  must  be  attributed  to  this  influence  exerted  all 
unconsciously  upon  the  minds  of  the  people.  The  rhythm  and 
the  expressiveness  of  these  magnificent  poems  could  scarcely 
fail  to  stamp  itself  to  some  degree  upon  the  language,  crude 
though  it  might  be,  of  the  people  who  had  become  so  familiar 
with  them.  It  is,  then,  to  no  small  extent  because  of  the  in- 
fluence of  these  Latin  hymns  that  our  modern  languages  possess 
a  rythmic  melodiousness  that  in  time  enabled  them  to  become 
the  instruments  for  poetic  diction  in  such  a  way  as  to  satisfy 
all  the  requirements  of  the  modern  ear  in  rhyme,  and  rhythm, 
and  meter.  A  striking  corresponding  effect  upon  the  exact- 
ness of  expression  in  the  modern  languages,  it  will  be  noticed, 
is  pointed  out  in  the  chapter  on  the  Prose  of  the  Century 
as  representing,  according  to  Professor  Saintsbury,  the  great- 
est benefit  that  was  derived  from  the  exaggerated  practise  of 
dialectic  disputation  in  the  curriculum  of  the  medieval  Uni- 
versities. 

Those  who  would  think  that  the  Thirteenth  Century  was 
happy  in  creative  genius  but  lacking  in  the  critical  faculty  that 
would  enable  it  to  select  the  best,  not  only  of  the  hymns  pre- 
sented by  its  own  generations  but  also  of  those  which  came  from 
the  preceding  centuries,  should  make  themselves  acquainted 
with  the  history  of  these  Latin  hymns.  Just  before  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  the  monks  of  the  famous  Abbey  of  St.  Victor 
took  up  the  writing  of  hymns  with  wonderful  success  and  two 
of  them,  Adam  and  Hugh,  became  not  only  the  favorites  of 
their  own  but  of  succeeding  generations.  The  Thirteenth 


ORE  A  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  205 

Century  received  the  work  of  these  men  and  gave  them  a 
vogue  which  has  continued  down  to  our  own  time.  Some  of  the- 
hymns  that  were  thus  acclaimed  and  made  popular  are  among 
the  greatest  contributions  to  this  form  of  literature,  and  while 
they  have  had  periods  of  eclipse  owing  to  bad  taste  in  the  times 
that  followed,  the  reputation  secured  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century  has  always  been  sufficient  to  recall  them  to  memory 
and  bring  men  again  to  a  realization  of  their  beauty  when  a 
more  esthetic  generation  came  into  existence. 

One  of  the  hymns  of  the  immediately  preceding  time,  which 
attained  great  popularity  during  the  Thirteenth  Century — a 
popularity  that  reflects  credit  on  those  among  whom  it  is  noted 
as  well  as  upon  the  great  hymn  itself — was  Bernard  of  Cluny's 
or  Bernard  of  Morlaix's  hymn,  concerning  the  contempt  of 
the  world,  many  of  the  ideas  of  which  were  to  be  used  freely  in 
the  book  bearing  this  title  written  by  the  first  Pope  of  the  cen- 
tury, Innocent  III,  whose  name  is  usually,  though  gratui- 
tously associated  with  quite  other  ideas  than  those  of  contempt 
for  worldly  grandeur.  The  description  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
to  come,  which  is  found  at  the  beginning  of  this  great  poem, 
is  the  basis  of  all  the  modern  religious  poems  on  this  subject. 
Few  hymns  have  been  more  praised.  SchafT,  in  his  Christ  in 
Song  says :  "This  glowing  description  is  the  sweetest  of  all  the 
new  Jerusalem  Hymns  of  Heavenly  Homesickness  which  have 
taken  their  inspiration  from  the  last  two  chapters  of  Revela- 
tion." The  extreme  difficulty  of  the  meter  which  its  author 
selected  and  which  would  seem  almost  to  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  expressing  great  connected  thought,  especially  in  so 
long  a  poem,  became  under  the  master  hand  of  this  poetic 
genius,  whose  command  of  the  Latin  language  is  unrivaled, 
the  source  of  new  beauties  for  his  poem.  Besides  maintaining 
the  meter  of  the  old  Latin  hexameters  he  added  double  rhymes 
in  each  line  and  yet  had  every  alternate  line  also  end  in  a 
rhyme.  To  appreciate  the  difficulty  this  must  be  read. 

Hora  novissima,  tempora  pessima  sunt,  vigilemus, 
Ecce  minaciter  imminet  arbiter  ille  supremus 
Imminet,  imminet  ut  mala  terminet,  aequa  coronet, 
Recta  remuneret,  anxia  liberet,  aethera  donet, 


206  -  ORE  A  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Auferat  aspera  duraque  pondera  mentis  onustae, 
Sobria  muniat,  improba  puniat,  utraque  juste. 

Hie  breve  vivitur,  hie  breve  plangitur,  hie  breve  fletur; 

Non  breve  vivere,  non  breve  plangere  retribuetur ; 

O  retributio !  stat  brevis  actio,  vita  perennis ; 

O  retributio !  coelica  mansio  stat  lue  plenis ; 

Quid  datur  et  quibus  ?  aether  egentibus  et  cruce  dignis, 

Sidera  vermibus,  optima  sontibus,  astra  malignis. 

There  are  many  versions,  but  few  translators  have  dared  to 
attempt  a  close  imitation  of  the  original  meter.  .Its  beauty  is 
so  great,  however,  that  even  the  labor  required  for  this  has  not 
deterred  some  enthusiastic  admirers.  Our  English  tongue, 
however,  does  not  lend  itself  readily  to  the  production  of  hex- 
ameters, though  in  these  lines  the  rhyme  and  rhythm  has  been 
caught  to  some  extent : 

"These  are  the  latter  times,  these  are  not  better  times; 

Let  us  stand  waiting ; 

Lo!  how  with,  awfulness,  He,  first  in  lawfulness, 
Comes  arbitrating." 

Even  from  this  it  may  be  realized  that  Doctor  Neale  is  justified 
in  his  enthusiastic  opinion  that  "it  is  the  most  lovely,  in  the 
same  way  that  the  Dies  Irae  is  the  most  sublime,  and  the  Stabat 
Mater  the  most  pathetic,  of  medieval  poems." 

While  it  scarcely  has  a  place  here  properly,  a  word  must  be 
said  with  regard  to  the  music  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It 
might  possibly  be  thought  that  these  wondrous  rhymes  had  been 
spoiled  in  their  effectiveness  by  the  crude  music  to  which  they 
were  set.  To  harbor  any  such  notion,  however,  would  only 
be  another  exhibition  of  that  intellectual  snobbery  which  con- 
cludes that  generations  so  distant  could  not  have  anything 
worth  the  consideration  of  our  more  developed  time.  The 
music  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  as  great  a  triumph  as  any 
other  feature  of  its  accomplishment.  It  would  be  clearly  absurd 
to  suppose,  that  the  people  who  created  the  Cathedrals  and 
made  every  element  associated  with  the  church  ceremonial  so 
beautiful  as  to  attract  the  attention  of  all  generations  since, 
could  have  failed  to  develop  a  music  suitable  to  these  magnif- 


GREA  T  LA  TIN  HYMNS.  207 

icent  fanes.  As  a  matter  of  fact  no  more  suitable  music  for 
congregational  singing  than  the  Gregorian  Chant,  which 
reached  the  acme  of  its  development  in  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
has  been  invented,  and  the  fact  that  the  Catholic  Church, 
after  having  tried  modern  music,  is  now  going  back  to  this 
medieval  musical  mode  for  devotional  expression,  is  only  a  fur- 
ther noteworthy  tribute  to  the  enduring  character  of  another 
phase  of  Thirteenth  Century  accomplishment. 

Rockstro,  who  wrote  the  article  on  Plain  Chant  for 
Grove's  Dictionary  of  Music  and  for  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica,  declared  that  no  more  wonderful  succession  of  single 
notes,  had  even  been  strung  into  melodies  so  harmoniously 
adapted  to  the  expression  of  the  words  with  which  they  were 
to  be  sung,  than  some  of  these  Plain  Chants  of  the  Middle  Ages 
and  especially  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  No  more  sublimely 
beautiful  musical  expression  of  all  the  depths  there  are  in  sad- 
ness has  ever  found  its  way  into  music,  than  what  is  so  simply 
expressed  in  the  Lamentations  as  they  are  sung  in  the  office 
called  Tenebrae  during  Holy  Week.  Even  more  beautiful  in 
its  joyousness  is  the  marvelous  melody  of  the  Exultet  which  is 
sung  in  the  Office  of  Holy  Saturday.  This*  latter  is  said  to  be 
the  sublimest  expression  of  joyful  sound  that  has  ever  come 
from  the  human  heart  and  mind.  In  a  word,  in  music  as  in  every 
other  artistic  department,  the  men  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
reached  a  standard  that  has  never  been  excelled  and  that  re- 
mains to  the  present  day  as  a  source  of  pleasure  and  admiration 
for  intellectual  men,  and  will  continue  to  be  so  for  numberless 
generations  yet  unborn. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  the  Thirteenth  Century  men  and 
women  were  satisfied  with  Church  music  alone.  About  the  mid- 
dle of  the  century  part  singing  came  into  use  in  the  churches 
at  the  less  formal  ceremonials,  and  soon  spread  to  secular  uses. 
As  the  Mystery  Plays  gave  rise  to  the  modern  drama,  so  church 
music  gave  birth  to  the  popular  music  of  the  time.  In  England, 
particularly,  about  the  middle  of  the  century,  various  glee 
songs  were  sung,  portions  of  which  have  come  down  to  us, 
and  a  great  movement  of  folk  music  was  begun.  Before  the 
end  of  the  century  the  interaction  of  church  and  secular  music 
had  given  rise  to  many  of  the  modes  of  modern  musical  devel- 


208 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


opment,  and  the  musical  movement  was  as  substantially  begun 
as  were  any  of  the  other  great  artistic  and  intellectual  move- 
ments which  this  century  so  marvelously  initiated.  This  sub- 
ject, of  course,  is  of  the  kind  that  needs  to  be  studied  in  special 
works  if  any  satisfactory  amount  of  information  is  to  be  ob- 
tained, but  even  the  passing  hint  of  it  which  we  have  been  able 
to  give  will  enable  the  reader  to  realize  the  important  place  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  in  the  development  of  modern  music. 


BLESSED  VIRGIN  ENTOMBED    (NOTRE  DAME,  PARIS) 


THREE  MOST  READ  BOOKS.  209 

XIII 
THREE  MOST   READ   BOOKS   OF  THE   CENTURY. 


Three  books  were  more  read  than  any  others  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  that  is,  of  course,  apart  from  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, which  contrary  to  the  usually  accepted  notion  in  this 
matter,  were  frequently  the  subject  of  study  and  of  almost 
daily  contact  in  one  way  or  another  by  all  classes  of  people. 
These  three  books  were,  Reynard  the  Fox,  that  is  the  series 
of  stories  of  the  animals  in  which  they  are  used  as  a  cloak 
for  a  satire  upon  man  and  his  ways,  called  often  the  Animal 
Epic;  the  Golden  Legend,  which  impressed  Longfellow  so 
much  thut  he  spent  many  years  making  what  he  hoped  might 
prove  for  the  modern  world  a  bit  of  the  self-revelation  that 
this  wonderful  old  medieval  book  has  been  for  its  own  and 
subsequent  generations ;  and,  finally,  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,, 
probably  the  most  read  book  during  the  Thirteenth  and  Four- 
teenth and  most  of  the  Fifteenth  centuries  in  all  the  countries 
of  Europe.  Its  popularity  can  be  well  appreciated  from  the 
fact  that,  though  Chaucer  was  much  read,  there  are  more  than 
three  times  as  many  manuscript  copies  of  The  Romance  of  the 
Rose  in  existence  as  of  Chaucer's  Canterbury  Tales,  and  it 
was  one  of  the  earliest  books  to  see  the  light  in  print.* 

*  It  was  a  favorite  occupation  some  few  years  ago  to  pick  out  what 
were  considered  the  ten  best  books.  Sir  John  Lubbock  first  suggested, 
that  it  would  be  an  interesting  thing  to  pick  out  the  ten  books  which, 
if  one  were  to  be  confined  for  life,  should  be  thought  the  most  likely  to 
be  of  enduring  interest.  If  this  favorite  game  were  to  be  played  with 
the  selection  limited  to  the  authors  of  a  single  century,  it  is  reasonably 
sure  that  most  educated  people  would  pick  out  the  thirteenth  century 
group  of  ten  for  their  exclusive  reading  for  the  rest  of  life,  rather  than 
any  other.  An  experimental  list  of  ten  books  selected  from  the  thir- 
teenth century  writers  would  include  the  Cid,  the  Legends  of  King  Ar- 
thur, the  Nibelungen  Lied,  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  Reynard  the  Fox, 
the  Golden  Legend,  the  Summaof  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Parsifal  or  Per- 
ceval by  Wolfram  von  Kschenbach,  Durandus's  Symbolism  and  Dante. 
As  will  readily  be  appreciated  by  anyone  who  knows  literature  well, 
these  are  eminently  books  of  enduring  interest.  When  it  is  considered 
that  in  making  this  list  no  call  is  made  upon  Icelandic  Literature  nor 
Proven9al  Literature,  both  of  which  are  of  supreme  interest,  and  both 
reached  their  maturity  at  this  time,  the  abounding  literary  wealth  of  the 
century  will  be  understood. 


210  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES, 

It  has  become  the  fashion  in  recent  years,  to  take  the  pains 
from  time  to  time  to  find  out  which  are  the  most  read  books. 
The  criterion  of  worth  thus  set  up  is  not  very  valuable,  for 
unfortunately  for  the  increase  in  readers,  there  has  not  come 
a  corresponding  demand  for  the  best  books  nor  for  solid  lit- 
erature. The  fact  that  a  book  has  been  the  best  seller,  or  the 
most  read  for  a  time,  usually  stamps  it  at  once  as  trivial  or  at 
most  as  being  of  quite  momentary  interest  and  not  at  all  likely 
to  endure.  It  is  all  the  more  interesting  to  find  then,  that  these 
three  most  read  books  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  have  not  only 
more  than  merely  academic  interest  at  the  present  time, 
but  that  they  are  literature  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word.  They 
have  always  been  not  only  a  means  of  helping  people  to  pass 
the  time,  the  sad  office  to  which  the  generality  of  books  has 
been  reduced  in  our  time,  but  a  source  of  inspiration  for  lit- 
erary men  in  many  generations  since  they  first  became  popular. 

The  story  of  Reynard  the  Fox  is  one  of  the  most  profoundly 
humorous  books  that  was  ever  written.  Its  satire  was  aimed 
at  its  own  time  yet  it  is  never  for  a  moment  antiquated  for  the 
modern  reader.  At  a  time  when,  owing  to  the  imperfect  de- 
velopment of  personal  rights,  it  would  have  been  extremely 
dangerous  to  satirize  as  the  author  does  very  freely,  the  rulers, 
the  judges,  the  nobility,  the  ecclesiastical  authorities  and 
churchmen,  and  practically  all  classes  of  society,  the  writer, 
whose  name  has,  unfortunately  for.  the  completeness  of  lit- 
erary history,  not  come  down  to  us,  succeeded  in  painting  all 
the  foibles  of  men  and  pointing  out  all  the  differences  there  are 
between  men's  pretensions  and  their  actual  accomplishments. 
All  the  methods  by  which  the  cunning  scoundrel  could  escape 
justice  are  exploited.  The  various  modes  of  escaping  punish- 
ment by  direct  and  indirect  bribery,  by  pretended  repentance 
and  reformation,  by  cunning  appeal  to  the  selfishness  of  judges, 
are  revealed  with  the  fidelity  to  detail  of  a  modern  muck- 
raker  ;  yet,  all  of  it  with  a  humanly  humorous  quality  which, 
while  it  takes  away  nothing  from  the  completeness  of  the  ex- 
posure, removes  most  of  the  bitterness  that  probably  would 
have  made  the  satire  fail  of  its  purpose.  While  every  class  in 
the  community  of  the  time  comes  in  for  satirical  allusions,  that 
give  us  a  better  idea  of  how  closely  the  men  and  the  women 


THREE  MOST  READ  BOOKS.        211 

of  the  time  resembled  those  of  our  own,  than  is  to  be  found  in 
any  other  single  literary  work  that  has  been  preserved  for  us 
from  this  century,  or,  indeed,  any  other,  the  series  of  stories 
seemed  to  be  scarcely  more  than  a  collection  of  fables  for 
children,  and  probably  was  read  quite  unsuspectingly  by  those 
who  are  so  unmercifully  satirized  in  it,  though  doubtless,  as 
is  usually  noted  in  such  cases,  each  one  may  have  applied  the 
satire  of  the  story  as  he  saw  it  to  his  neighbor  and  not  to 
himself. 

A  recent  editor  has  said  very  well  of  Reynard  the  Fox  that  it 
is  one  of  the  most  universal  of  books  in  its  interest  for  all 
classes.  Critics  have  at  all  times  been  ready  to  praise  and  few 
if  any  have  found  fault.  It  is  one  of  the  books  that  answers 
well  to  what  Cardinal  Newman  declared  to  be  at  least  the  acci- 
dental definition  of  a  classic ;  it  pleases  in  childhood,  in  youth, 
in  middle  age  and  even  in  declining  years.  It  is  because  of 
the  eternal  verity  of  the  humanity  in  the  book,  that  with  so 
much  truth  Froude  writing  of  Reynard  can  say:  "It  is  not 
addressed  to  a  passing  mode  of  folly  or  of  profligacy,  but  it 
touches  the  perennial  nature  of  mankind,  laying  bare  our  own 
sympathies,  and  tastes,  and  weaknesses,  with  as  keen  and  true 
an  edge  as  when  the  living  world  of  the  old  Suabian  poet  winced 
under  its  earliest  utterance." 

The  writer  who  traced  the  portraits  must  be  counted  one  of 
the  great  observers  of  all  time.  As  is  the  case  with  so  many 
creative  artists  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  though  this  is  truer 
elsewhere  than  in  literature,  the  author  is  not  known.  Perhaps 
he  thought  it  safer  to  shroud  his  identity  in  friendly  obscurity, 
rather  than  expose  himself  to  the  risks  the  finding  of  supposed 
keys  to  his  satire  might  occasion.  Too  much  credit  must  not 
be  given  to  this  explanation,  however,  though  some  writers 
have  made  material  out  of  it  to  exploit  Church  intolerance, 
which  the  conditions  do  not  justify.  We  are  not  sure  who 
wrote  the  Arthur  Legends,  we  do  not  know  the  author  of  the 
Cid,  even  all-pervasive  German  scholarship  has  not  settled  the 
problem  of  the  writer  of  the  Nibelungen,  and  the  authorship 
of  the  Dies  Irae  is  in  doubt,  though  all  of  these  would  be 
sources  ot  honor  and  praise  rather  than  danger.  Authors  had 
evidently  not  as  yet  become  sophisticated  to  the  extent  of  seek- 


212  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ing  immortality  for  their  works.  They  even  seem  to  have  been 
indifferent  as  to  whether  their  names  were  associated  with 
them  or  not.  Enough  for  them  apparently  to  have  had  the 
satisfaction  of  doing,  all  else  seemed  futile. 

The  original  of  Reynard  the  Fox  was  probably  written  in  the 
Netherlands,  though  it  may  be  somewhat  difficult  for  the  mod- 
ern mind  to  associate  so  much  of  wit  a  ad  humor  with  the 
Dutchmen  of  the  Middle  Ages.  It  arose  there  about  the  time 
that  the  Cid  came  into  vogue  in  Spain,  the  Arthur  Legends 
were  being  put  into  shape  in  England,  and  the  Nibelungen 
reaching  its  ultimate  form  in  Germany.  Reynard  thus  fills  up 
the  geographical  chart  of  contemporary  literary  effort  for  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  since  France  and  Italy  come  in  for  their 
share  in  other  forms  of  literature,  and  no  country  is  missing 
from  the  story  of  successful,  enduring  accomplishment  in  let- 
ters. It  was  written  from  so  close  to  the  heart  of  Nature,  that 
it  makes  a  most  interesting  gift  book  even  for  the  Twentieth 
Century  child,  and  yet  will  be  read  with  probably  even  more 
pleasure  by  the  parents.  With  good  reason  another  recent 
editor  has  thus  summed  up  the  catholicity  of  its  appeal  to  all 
generations : 

"This  book  belongs  to  the  rare  class  which  is  equally  delight- 
ful to  children  and  to  their  elders.  In  this  regard  it  may 
be  compared  to  'Gulliver's  Travels,'  'Don  Quixote'  and  'Pil- 
grim's Progress/  For  wit  and  shrewd  satire  and  for  pure 
drollery  both  in  situations  and  descriptions,  it  is  unsurpassed. 
The  animals  are  not  men  dressed  up  in  the  skin  of  beasts,  but 
are  throughout  true  to  their  characters,  and  are  not  only 
strongly  realized  but  consistently  drawn,  albeit  in  so  simple 
and  captivating  a  way  that  the  subtle  art  of  the  narrator  is 
quite  hidden,  and  one  is  aware  only  of  reading  an  absorbingly 
interesting  and  witty  tale."  To  have  a  place  beside  Gulliver, 
the  old  Spanish  Knight  and  Christian,  shows  the  estimation 
in  which  the  book  is  held  by  those  who  are  best  acquainted 
with  it. 

The  work  is  probably  best  known  through  the  version  of  it 
which  has  come  to  us  from  the  greatest  of  German  poets, 
Goethe,  whose  Reineke  Fuchs  has  perhaps  had  more  sympa- 
thetic readers  and  a  wider  audience  than  any  other  of  Goethe's 


THREE  MOST  READ  BOOKS.        213 

works.  The  very  fact  that  so  deeply  intellectual  a  literary  man 
should  have  considered  it  worth  his  while  to  devote  his  time 
to  making  a  modern  version  of  it,  shows  not  only  the  estima- 
tion in  which  he  held  it,  but  also  affords  excellent  testimony 
to  its  worth  as  literature,  for  Goethe,  unlike  most  poets,  was  a 
fine  literary  critic,  and  one  who  above  all  knew  the  reasons 
for  the  esthetic  faith  that  was  in  him.  Animal  stories  in  every 
age,  however,  have  been  imitations  of  it  much  more  than  is 
usually  imagined.  While  the  author  probably  obtained  the  hint 
for  his  work  from  some  of  the  old-time  fables  as  they  came  to 
him  by  tradition,  though  we  have  no  reason  to  think  that  ^Esop 
was  familiar  to  him  and  many  for  thinking  the  Greek  fabu- 
list was  not,  he  added  so  much  to  this  simple  literary  mode, 
transformed  it  so  thoroughly  from  child's  literature  to  world 
literature,  that  the  main  merit  of  modern  animal  stories  must 
be  attributed  to  him.  Uncle  Remus  and  the  many  compilations 
of  this  kind  that  have  been  popular  in  our  own  generation,  owe 
much  more  to  the  animal  Epic  than  might  be  thought  possible 
by  one  not  familiar  with  the  original  Thirteenth  Century  work. 

Every  language  has  a  translation  of  the  Animal  Epic  and 
most  of  the  generations  since  have  been  interested  and  amused 
by  the  quaint  conceits,  which  enable  the  author  to  picture  so 
undisguisedly,  men  and  women  under  animal  garb.  It  discloses 
better  than  any  other  specimen  of  the  literature  of  the  time  that 
men  and  women  do  not  change  even  in  the  course  of  centuries, 
and  that  in  the  heart  of  the  Middle  Ages  a  wise  observer  could 
see  the  foibles  of  humanity  just  as  they  exist  at  the  present 
time.  Any  one  who  thinks  that  evolution  after  seven  centuries 
should  have  changed  men  somewhat  in  their  ethical  aspects,  at 
least,  made  their  aspirations  higher  and  their  tendencies  less 
commonplace,  not  to  say  less  degenerative,  should  read  one  of 
the  old  versions  of  Reynard  the  Fox  and  be  convinced  that  men 
and  women  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  were  quite  the  same  as 
we  are  familiar  with  them  at  the  present  moment. 

The  second  of  the  most  read  books  of  the  century  is  the 
famous  Legenda  Aurea  or,  as  it  has  been  called  in  English, 
the  Golden  Legend,  written  by  Jacobus  de  Voragine,  the  dis- 
tinguished Dominican  preacher  and  writer  (born  during  the 
first  half  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  died  just  at  its  close),  who, 


214  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

after  rising  to  the  higher  grades  in  his  own  order,  became  the 
Archbishop  of  Genoa.  His  work  at  once  sprang  into  popular 
favor  and  continued  to  be  perhaps  the  most  widely  read  book, 
with  the  exception  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  during  the  Four- 
teenth and  Fifteenth  centuries.  It  was  one  of  the  earliest 
books  printed  in  Italy,  the  first  edition  appearing  about  1570, 
and  it  is  evident  that  it  was  considered  that  its  widespread 
popularity  would  not  only  reimburse  the  publisher,  but  would 
help  the  nascent  art  of  printing  by  bringing  it  to  the  attention 
of  a  great  many  people.  Its  subject  is  very  different  from  that 
of  the  modern  most  read  books ;  librarians  do  not  often  have 
to  supply  lives  of  Saints  nowadays,  though  some  similarities 
of  material  with  that  of  books  now  much  in  demand  help  to 
account  for  its  vogue. 

Jacobus  de  Voragine's  work  consisted  of  the  lives  of  the 
greater  Saints  of  the  Church  since  the  time  of  Christ,  and  de- 
tailed especially  the  wonderful  things  that  happened  in  their 
lives,  some  of  which  of  course  were  mythical  and  all  of  them 
containing  marvelous  stories.  This  gave  prominence  to  many- 
legends  that  have  continued  to  maintain  their  hold  upon  the 
popular  imagination  ever  since.  With  all  this  adventitious 
interest,  however,  the  book  contained  a  solid  fund  of  informa- 
tion with  regard  to  the  lives  of  the  Saints,  and  besides  it 
taught  the  precious  lessons  of  unselfishness  and  the  care  for 
others  of  the  men  who  had  come  to  be  greeted  by  the  title  of 
Saint.  The  work  must  have  done  not  a  little  to  stir  up  the 
faith,  enliven  the  charity,  and  build  up  the  characters  of  the 
people  of  the  time,  and  certainly  has  fewer  objections  than 
most  popular  reading  at  any  period  of  the  world's  history. 
For  young  folks  the  wonderful  legends  afforded  excellent  and 
absolutely  innocuous  exercise  of  the  functions  of  the  imagina- 
tion quite  as  well  as  our  own  modern  wonder  books  or  fairy 
tales,  while  the  stories  themselves  presented  many  descriptive 
portions  out  of  which  subjects  for  decorative  purposes  could 
readily  be  obtained.  It  must  be  set  down  as  another  typical 
distinction  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  and  an  addition  to  its 
greatness,  that  it  should  have  made  the  Golden  Legend  popular 
and  thus  preserved  it  for  future  generations,  who  became 


THREE  MOST  READ  BOOKS.  215 

deeply  interested  in  it,  as  in  most  of  the  other  precious  heritages 
they  received  from  this  great  original  century. 

The  third  of  the  most  read  books  of  the  century,  The  Ro- 
mance of  the  Rose,  is  not  so  well  known  except  by  scholars 
as  is  the  Animal  Epic  or  perhaps  even  the  Golden  Legend. 
Anyone  who  wants  to  understand  the  burden  of  the  time,  how- 
ever, and  who  wishes  to  put  himself  in  the  mood  and  the  tense 
to  comprehend  not  only  the  other  literature  of  the  era,  and  in 
this  must  be  included  even  Dante,  but  also  the  social,  educa- 
tional, and  even  scientific  movements  of  the  period,  must  be- 
come familiar  with  it.  It  has  been  well  said  that  a  knowledge 
and  study  of  the  three  most  read  books  of  the  century,  those 
which  we  have  named,  will  afford  a  far  clearer  insight  into 
the  daily  life  and  the  spirit  working  within  the  people  for 
whom  they  were  written,  than  the  annals  of  the  wars  or 
political  struggles  that  were  waged  during  the  same  period  be- 
tween kings  and  nobles.  For  this  clearer  insight  a  knowledge 
of  the  Romance  of  the  Rose  is  more  important  than  of  the 
others.  It  provides  a  better  introduction  to  the  customs  and 
habits,  the  manners  of  thought  and  of  action,  the  literary  and 
educational  interests  of  the  people  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
than  any  mere  history,  however  detailed,  could.  In  this  respect 
it  resembles  Homer  who,  as  Froude  declares,  has  given  us  a 
better  idea  of  Greek  life  than  a  whole  encyclopedia  of  classified 
information  would  have  done.  The  intimate  life  stories  of  no 
other  periods  in  history  are  so  well  illustrated,  nor  so  readily 
to  be  comprehended,  as  those  of  Homer  and  the  authors  of  the 
medieval  Romaunt. 

The  Romance  of  the  Rose  continued  to  be  for  more  than 
two  centuries  the  most  read  book  in  Europe.  Every  one  with 
any  pretense  to  scholarship  or  to  literary  taste  in  any  European 
country  considered  it  necessary  to  be  familiar  with  it,  and  with- 
out exaggeration  what  Lowell  once  declared  with  regard  to 
Don  Quixote,  that  it  would  be  considered  a  mark  of  lack  of 
culture  to  miss  a  reference  to  it  in  any  country  in  Europe, 
might  well  have  been  repeated  during  the  Fourteenth  and  Fif- 
teenth centuries  of  the  Romance  of  the  Rose.  It  has  in  recent 
years  been  put  into  very  suitable  English  dress  by  Mr.  F.  S.  El- 
lis and  published  among  the  Temple  Classics,  thus  placing  it 


216  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

within  easy  reach  of  English  readers.  Mr.  Ellis  must  certainly  be 
considered  a  suitable  judge  of  the  interest  there  is  in  the  work. 
He  spent  several  years  in  translating  its  two  and  twenty  thous- 
and six  hundred  and  eight  lines  and  yet  considers  that  few 
books  deserve  as  much  attention  as  this  typical  Thirteenth 
Century  allegory.  He  says : 

"The  charge  of  dulness  once  made  against  this  highly  imag- 
inative and  brilliant  book,  successive  English  writers,  until 
quite  recent  times  have  been  content  to  accept  the  verdict, 
though  Professor  Morley  and  others  have  of  late  ably  repelled 
the  charge.  If  further  testimony  were  necessary  as  to  the 
falsity  of  the  accusation,  and  the  opinion  of  one  who  has  found 
a  grateful  pastime  in  translating  it  might  be  considered  of  any 
weight,  he  would  not  hesitate  to  traverse  the  attribution  of  dul- 
ness, and  to  assert  that  it  is  a  poem  of  extreme  interest,  writ- 
ten as  to  the  first  part  with  delicate  fancy,  sweet  appreciation 
of  natural  beauty,  clear  insight,  and  skilful  invention,  while  J. 
de  Meun's  continuation  is  distinguished  by  vigor,  brilliant  in- 
vention, and  close  observation  of  human  nature.  The  Thir- 
teenth Century  lives  before  us." 

The  Rose  is  written  on  a  lofty  plane  of  literary  value,  and 
the  fact  that  it  was  so  popular,  speaks  well  for  the  taste  of  the 
times  and  for  the  enthusiasm  of  the  people  for  the  more  serious 
forms  of  literature.  Not  that  the  Romance  of  the  Rose  is  a 
very  serious  book  itself,  but  if  we  compare  it  with  the  popular 
publications  which  barely  touch  the  realities  of  life  in  the  mod- 
ern time,  it  will  seem  eminently  serious.  In  spite  of  the  years 
that  have  elapsed  since  its  original  publication  it  has  not  lost 
all  its  interest,  even  for  a  casual  reader,  and  especially  for  one 
whose  principal  study  is  mankind  in  its  varying  environment 
down  the  ages,  for  it  presents  a  very  interesting  picture  of  men 
and  their  ways  in  this  wonderful  century.  Here,  as  in  the 
stories  of  Reynard  the  Fox,  one  is  brought  face  to  face  with 
the  fact  that  men  and  women  have  not  changed  and  that  the 
peccadillos  of  our  own  generation  have  their  history  in  the 
Middle  Ages  also.  Take,  for  instance,  the  question  of  the  too 
great  love  of  money  which  is  now  the  subject  of  so  much  writ- 
ing and  sermonizing.  One  might  think  that  at  least  this  was 


THREE  MOST  READ  BOOKS.       217 

modern.    Here,  however,  is  what  the  author  of  the  Romance  of 
the  Rose  has  to  say  about  it  : 

Three  cruel  vengeances  pursue 

These  miserable  wretches  who 

Hoard  up  their  worthless  wealth  :  great  toil 

Is  theirs  to  win  it;  then  their  spoil 

They  fear  to  lose  ;  and  lastly,  grieve 

Most  bitterly  that  they  must  leave 

Their  hoards  behind  them.    Cursed  they  die 

Who  living,  lived  but  wretchedly  ; 

For  no  man,  if  he  lack  of  love, 

Hath  peace  below  or  joy  above. 

If  those  who  heap  up  wealth  would  show 

Fair  love  to  others,  they  would  go 

Through  life  beloved,  and  thus  would  reign 

Sweet  happy  days.    If  they  were  fain, 

Who  hold  so  much  of  good  to  shower  around 

Their  bounty  unto  those  they  found 

In  need  thereof,  and  nobly  lent 

Their  money,  free  from  measurement 

Of  usury  (yet  gave  it  not 

To  idle  gangrel  men),  I  wot 

That  then  throughout  the  land  were  seen 

No  pauper  carl  or  starveling  quean. 

But  lust  of  wealth  doth  so  abase 

Man's  heart,  that  even  love's  sweet  grace 

Bows  down  before  it;  men  but  love 

Their  neighbors  that  their  love  may  prove 

A  profit,  and  both  bought  and  sold 

Are  friendships  at  the  price  of  gold. 


Their  bodies,  heedless  of  hell-fite  ; 

It  is  after  reading  a  passage  like  this  in  a  book  written  in 
the  Thirteenth  Century  that  one  feels  the  full  truth  of  that  ex- 
pression of  the  greatest  of  American  critics,  James  Russell 
Lowell,  which  so  often  comes  back  to  mind  with  regard  to  the 
works  of  this  century,  that  to  read  a  classic  is  like  reading  a 
commentary  on  the  morning  paper.  When  this  principle  is 


218  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

applied  the  other  way,  I  suppose  it  may  be  said,  that  when 
a  book  written  in  the  long  ago  sounds  as  if  it  were  the  utter- 
ance of  some  one  aroused  by  the  evils  round  him  in  our  modern 
life,  then  it  springs  from  so  close  to  the  heart  of  nature  that 
it  is  destined  to  live  and  have  an  influence  far  beyond  its  own 
time.  The  Romance  of  the  Rose,  written  seven  centuries  ago, 
now  promises  to  have  renewed  youth  in  the  awakening  of  in- 
terest in  our  Gothic  ancestors  and  their  accomplishments,  be- 
fore the  over-praised  renaissance  came  to  trouble  the  stream  of 
thought  and  writing. 

Other  passages  serve  to  show  how  completely  the  old-time 
poet  realized  all  the  abuses  of  the  desire  for  wealth,  and  how 
much  it  makes  men  waste  their  lives  over  unessentials,  instead 
of  trying  to  make  existence  worth  while  for  themselves  and 
others.  Here  is  an  arraignment  of  the  strenuous  life  of  busi- 
ness every  line  of  which  is  as  true  for  us  as  it  was  for  the  poet's 
generation : 

Tis  truth  (though  some  'twill  little  please) 

To  hear  the  trader  knows  no  ease ; 

For  ever  in  his  soul  a  prey 

To  anxious  care  of  how  he  may 

Amass  more  wealth :  this  mad  desire 

Doth  all  his  thought  and  actions  fire, 

Devising  means  whereby  to  stuff 

His  barns  and  coffers,  for  'enough' 

He  ne'er  can  have,  but  hungreth  yet 

His  neighbors'  goods  and  gold  to  get. 

It  is  as  though  for  thirst  he  fain 

Would  quaff  the  volume  of  the  Seine 

At  one  full  draught,  and  yet  should  fail 

To  find  its  waters  of  avail 

To  quench  his  longing.    What  distress, 

What  anguish,  wrath,  and  bitterness 

Devour  the  wretch !  fell  rage  and  spite 

Possess  his  spirit  day  and  night, 

And  tear  his  heart ;  the  fear  of  want 

Pursues  him  like  a  spectre  gaunt. 

The  more  he  hath,  a  wider  mouth 

He  opes,  no  draught  can  quench  his  drouth. 


THREE  MOST  READ  BOOKS.        219 

The  old  poet  pictures  the  happiness  of  the  poor  man  by  con- 
trast, and  can  in  conclusion  depict  even  more  pitilessly  the  real 
poverty  of  spirit  of  the  man  who  "having,  struggleth  still  to 
get"  and  never  stops  to  enjoy  life  itself  by  helping  his  fellows: 

Light-heart  and  gay 

Goes  many  a  beggar  by  the  way, 

But  little  heeding  though  his  back 

Be  bent  beneath  a  charcoal  sack. 

They  labor  patiently  and  sing, 

And  dance,  and  laugh  at  whatso  thing 

Befalls,  for  havings  care  they  nought, 

But  feed  on  scraps  and  chitlings  bought 

Beside  St.  Marcel's,  and  dispend 

Their  gains  for  wassail,  then,  straight  wend 

Once  more  to  work,  not  grumblingly, 

But  light  of  heart  as  bird  on  tree 

Winning  their  bread  without  desire 

To  fleece  their  neighbors.    Nought  they  tire 

Of  this  their  round,  but  week  by  week 

In  mirth  and  work  contentment  seek; 

Returning  when  their  work  is  done 

Once  more  to  swill  the  jovial  tun. 

And  he  who  what  he  holds  esteems 

Enough,  is  rich  beyond  the  dreams 

Of  many  a  dreary  usurer, 

And  lives  his  life-days  happier  far; 

For  nought  it  signifies  what  gains 

The  wretched  usurer  makes,  the  pains 

Of  poverty  afflict  him  yet 

Who  having,  struggleth  still  to  get. 

The  pictures  are  as  true  to  life  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Twentieth  Century  as  they  were  in  the  latter  half  of  the  Thir- 
teenth. There  are  little  touches  of  realism  in  both  the  pictures, 
which  show  at  once  how  acute  an  observer,  how  full  of  humor 
his  appreciation,  and  yet  how  sympathetic  a  writer  the  author 
of  the  Romance  was,  and  at  the  same  time  reveal  something  of 
the  sociological  value  of  his  work.  It  discloses  what  is  so  easily 
concealed  under  the  mask  of  formal  historical  writing  and 


220 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


tells  us  of  the  people  rather  than  of  the  few  great  ones  among 
them,  or  those  whom  time  and  chance  had  made  leaders  of  men. 
It  seems  long  to  read  but  as  a  recent  translator  has  said,  it  rep- 
resents only  the  file  of  a  newspaper  for  eighteen  months,  and 
while  it  talks  of  quite  as  trivial  things  as  the  modern  news- 
paper, the  information  is  of  a  kind  that  is  likely  to  do  more 
good,  and  prove  of  more  satisfaction,  than  the  passing  crimes 
and  scandals  that  now  occupy  over-anxious  readers. 


CENTRAL  TOWER    (LINCOLN) 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  221 

XIV 
SOME  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE. 


It  would  be  unpardonable  to  allow  the  notion  to  be  enter- 
tained that  it  was  only  in  poetry  that  the  writers  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  succeeded  in  creating  works  of  enduring  in- 
fluence. Some  of  the  prose  writings  of  the  time  are  deeply 
interesting  for  many  reasons.  Modern  prose  was  in  its  forma- 
tive period,  and  the  evolution  of  style,  as  of  other  things  in  the 
making,  is  proverbially  worthy  of  more  serious  study  than 
even  the  developed  result.  The  prose  writings  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  were  mainly  done  in  Latin,  but  that  was  not 
for  lack  of  command  over  the  vernacular  tongues,  as  we  shall 
see,  but  because  this  was  practically  a  universal  language. 
This  century  had  among  other  advantages  that  subsequent 
ages  have  striven  for  unsuccessfully,  our  own  most  of  all,  a 
common  medium  of  expression  for  all  scholars  at  least.  There 
are,  however,  the  beginnings  of  Prose  in  all  the  modern  lan- 
guages and  it  is  easy  to  understand  that  the  Latin  of  the  time 
had  a  great  influence  on  the  vernacular  and  that  the  modes  of 
expression  which  had  become  familiar  in  the  learned  tongue, 
were  naturally  transferred  to  the  vulgar  speech,  as  it  was  called, 
whenever  accuracy  of  thought  and  nicety  of  expression  invited 
such  transmutation. 

With  regard  to  the  Latin  of  the  period  it  is  the  custom  of 
many  presumably  well-educated  men  to  sniff  a  little  and  say 
deprecatingly,  that  after  all  much  cannot  be  expected  from  the 
writers  of  the  time,  since  they  were  dependent  on  medieval  or 
scholastic  Latin  for  the  expression  of  their  ideas.  This  criti- 
cism is  supposed  to  do  away  with  any  idea  of  the  possibility  of 
there  having  been  a  praiseworthy  prose  style,  at  this  time  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  In  the  chapter  on  the  Latin  Hymns,  we  call  atten- 
tion to  the  fact  that  this  same  mode  of  criticism  was  supposed 
to  preclude  all  possibility  of  rhymed  Latin,  as  worthy  to  occupy 
a  prominent  place  in  literature.  The  widespread  encourage- 


222  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ment  of  this  false  impression  has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  led  to  a 
neglect  of  these  wonderful  poems,  though  they  may  in  the 
opinion  of  competent  critics,  even  be  considered  as  representing 
the  true  genius  of  the  Latin  language  and  its  powers  of  poetic 
expression  better  than  the  Greek  poetic  modes,  which  were 
adopted  by  the  Romans,  but  which,  with  the  possible  exception 
of  their  two  greatest  poets,  never  seem  to  have  acquired  that 
spontaneity  that  would  characterize  a  native  outburst  of  lan- 
guage vitality. 

As  for  the  philosophic  writers  of  the  century  that  great 
period  holds  in  this,  as  in  other  departments,  the  position  of 
the  palmiest  time  of  the  Middle  Ages.  To  it  belongs  Alexan- 
der Hales,  the  Doctor  Irrefragabilis  who  disputes  with  Aquinas 
the  prize  for  the  best  example  of  the  Summa  Theologiae; 
Bonaventure  the  Mystic,  and  writer  of  beautiful  hymns;  Roger 
Bacon,  the  natural  philosopher;  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  the 
encyclopedist.  While  of  the  four,  greatest  of  all,  Albertus 
Magnus,  the  "Dumb  Ox  of  Cologne,"  was  born  seven  years 
before  its  opening,  his  life  lasted  over  four-fifths  of  it ;  that  of 
Aquinas  covered  its  second  and  third  quarters ;  Occam  himself, 
though  his  main  exertions  lie  beyond  this  century,  was  probably 
born  before  Aquinas  died ;  while  John  Duns  Scotus  hardly  out- 
lived the  century's  close  by  a  decade.  Raymond  Lully,  one  of 
the  most  characteristic  figures  of  Scholasticism  and  of  the 
medieval  period  (with  his  "great  art"  of  automatic  philoso- 
phy), who  died  in  1315,  was  born  as  early  as  1235.  Peter 
the  Spaniard,  Pope  and  author  of  the  Summulae  Logicales, 
the  grammar  of  formal  logic  for  ages  as  well  of  several 
medieval  treatises  that  have  attracted  renewed  attention  in  our 
day,  died  in  1277. 

With  regard  to  what  was  accomplished  in  philosophic  and 
theologic  prose,  examples  will  be  found  in  the  chapter  on  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  which  prove  beyond  all  doubt  the  utter 
simplicity,  the  directness,  and  the  power  of  the  prose  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  In  the  medical  works  of  the  time,  there 
was  less  directness,  but  always  a  simplicity  that  made  them 
commendable.  In  general,  university  writers  were  influenced 
by  the  scholastic  methods  and  we  find  it  reflected  constantly  in 
their  works.  In  the  minds  of  many  people  this  would  be 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  223 

enough  at  once  to  condemn  it.  It  will  usually  be  found,  how- 
ever, as  we  have  noted  before,  that  those  who  are  readiest  to 
condemn  scholastic  writing  know  nothing  about  it,  or  so  little 
that  their  opinion  is  not  worth  considering.  Usually  they  have 
whatever  knowledge  they  think  they  possess,  at  second  hand. 
Sometimes  all  that  they  have  read  of  scholastic  philosophy  are 
some  particularly  obscure  passages  on  abstruse  subjects, 
selected  by  some  prejudiced  historian,  in  order  to  show  how 
impossible  was  the  philosophic  writing  of  these  centuries  of 
the  later  Middle  Ages. 

There  are  other  opinions,  however,  that  are  of  quite  different 
significance  and  value.  We  shall  quote  but  one  of  them,  writ- 
ten by  Professor  Saintsbury  of  the  University  of  Edinburgh, 
who  in  his  volume  on  the  Flourishing  of  Romance  and  the  Rise 
of  Allegory  (the  Twelfth  and  Thirteenth  centuries)  of  his 
Periods  of  European  Literature,  has  shown  how  sympathetic- 
ally the  prose  writing  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  may  appeal 
even  to  a  scholarly  modern,  whose  main  interests  have  been 
all  his  life  in  literature.  Far  from  thinking  that  prose  was 
spoiled  by  scholasticism,  Prof.  Saintsbury  considers  that  schol- 
asticism was  the  fortunate  training  school  in  which  all  the 
possibilities  of  modern  prose  were  brought  out  and  naturally 
introduced  into  the  budding  languages  of  the  time.  He  says: 

"However  this  may  be"  (whether  the  science  of  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  after  an  equal  interval  will  be  of  any  more 
positive  value,  whether  it  will  not  have  even  less  comparative 
interest  than  that  which  appertains  to  the  scholasticism  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century)  "the  claim  modest,  and  even  meager  as  it 
may  seem  to  some,  which  has  been  here  once  more  put  forward 
for  this  scholasticism — the  claim  of  a  far-reaching  educative 
influence  in  mere  language,  in  mere  system  of  arrangement  and 
expression,  will  remain  valid.  If  at  the  outset  of  the  career 
of  modern  languages,  men  had  thought  with  the  looseness  of 
modern  thought,  had  indulged  in  the  haphazard  slovenliness 
of  modern  fogic,  had  popularized  theology  and  vulgarized 
rhetoric,  as  we  have  seen  both  popularized  and  vulgarized 
since,  we  should  indeed  have  been  in  evil  case.  It  used  to  be 
thought  clever  to  moralize  and  to  felicitate  mankind  over  the 
rejection  of  the  stays,  the  fetters,  the  prison  in  which  its 


224  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

thought  was  medievally  kept.  The  justice  or  the  injustice, 
the  taste  or  the  vulgarity  of  these  moralizings,  of  these  felici- 
tations, may  not  concern  us  here.  But  in  expression,  as  distin- 
guished from  thought,  the  value  of  the  discipline  to  which  these 
youthful  languages  was  subjected  is  not  likely  now  to  be  denied 
by  any  scholar  who  has  paid  attention  to  the  subject.  It  would 
have  been  perhaps  a  pity  if  thought  had  not  gone  through 
other  phases ;  it  would  certainly  have  been  a  pity  if  the  tongues 
had  been  subjected  to  the  fullest  influence  of  Latin  constraint. 
But  that  the  more  lawless  of  them  benefited  by  that  constraint 
there  can  be  no  doubt  whatever.  The  influence  of  form  which 
the  best  Latin  hymns  of  the  Middle  Ages  exercised  in  poetry, 
the  influence  in  vocabulary  and  in  logical  arrangement  which 
scholasticism  exercised  in  prose  are  beyond  dispute:  and  even 
those  who  will  not  pardon  literature,  whatever  its  historic  and 
educative  importance  be,  for  being  something  less  than  masterly 
in  itself,  will  find  it  difficult  to  maintain  the  exclusion  of  the 
Cur  Deus  Homo,  and  impossible  to  refuse  admission  to  the 
Dies  Irae." 

Besides  this  philosophic  and  scientific  prose,  there  were  two 
forms  of  writing  of  which  this  century  presents  a  copious 
number  of  examples.  These  are  the  chronicles  and  biographies 
of  the  time  and  the  stories  of  travelers  and  explorers.  These  lat- 
ter we  have  treated  in  a  separate  chapter.  The  chronicles  of  the 
time  deserve  to  be  studied  with  patient  attention  by  anyone 
who  wishes  to  know  the  prose  writers  of  the  century  and  the 
character  of  the  men  of  that  time  and  their  outlook  on  life.  It 
is  usually  considered  that  chroniclers  are  rather  tiresome  old 
fogies  who  talk  much  and  say  very  little,  who  accept  all  sorts 
of  legends  on  insufficient  authority  and  who  like  to  fill  up  their 
pages  with  wonderful  things  regardless  of  their  truth.  In  this 
regard  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  in  times  almost  within  the 
memory  of  men  still  alive,  Herodotus  now  looked  upon  deser- 
vedly as  the  Father  of  History  and  one  of  the  great  historical 
writers  of  all  time,  was  considered  to  have  a  place  among  these 
chroniclers,  and  his  works  were  ranked  scarcely  higher,  except 
for  the  purity  of  their  Greek  style. 

The  first  of  the  great  chroniclers  in  a  modern  tongue  was  the 
famous  Geoffrey  de  Villehardouin,  who  was  not  only  a  writer 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  225 

of,  but  an  actor  in  the  scenes  which  he  describes.  He  was  en- 
rolled among  the  elite  of  French  Chivalry,  in  that  Crusade  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  which  resulted  in  the 
foundation  of  the  Greco-Latin  Empire.  His  book  entitled  "The 
Conquest  of  Constantinople,"  includes  the  story  of  the  expedi- 
tion during  the  years  from  1198  to  1207.  Modern  war  cor- 
respondents have  seldom  succeeded  in  giving  a  more  vivid 
picture  of  the  events  of  which  they  were  witnesses  than  this  first 
French  chronicler  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  is  evident 
that  the  work  was  composed  with  the  idea  that  it  should  be  re- 
cited, as  had  been  the  old  poetic  Chansons  de  Geste,  in  the  cas- 
tles of  the  nobles  and  before  assemblages  of  the  people,  perhaps 
on  fair  days  and  other  times  when  they  were  gathered  together. 
The  consequence  is  that  it  is  written  in  a  lively  straightforward 
style  with  direct  appeals  to  its  auditors. 

It  contains  not  a  few  passages  of  highly  poetic  description 
which  show  that  the  chronicler  was  himself  a  literary  man  ot 
no  mean  order  and  probably  well  versed  in  the  effusions  of  the 
old  poets  of  this  country.  His  description  of  the  fleet  of  the 
Crusaders  as  it  was  about  to  set  sail  for  the  East  and  then  his 
description  of  its  arrival  before  the  imposing  walls  of  the  Im- 
perial City,  are  the  best  examples  of  this,  and  have  not  been 
surpassed  even  by  modern  writers  on  similar  topics. 

Though  the  French  writer  was  beyond  all  doubt  not  famil- 
iar with  the  Grecian  writers  and  knew  nothing  of  Xenophon, 
there  is  a  constant  reminder  of  the  Greek  historian  in  his  work. 
Xenophon's  simple  directness,  his  thorough-going  sincerity,  the 
impression  he  produces  of  absolute  good  faith  and  confidence 
in  the  completeness  of  the  picture,  so  that  one  feels  that  one  has 
been  present  almost  at  many  of  the  scenes  described,  are  all  to 
be  encountered  in  his  medieval  successor.  Villehardouin  went 
far  ahead  of  his  predecessors,  the  chroniclers  of  foregoing  cen- 
turies, in  his  careful  devotion  to  truth.  A  French  writer  has 
declared  that  to  Villehardouin  must  be  ascribed  the  foundation 
of  historical  probity.  None  of  his  facts,  stated  as  such,  has 
ever  been  impugned,  and  though  his  long  speeches  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  his  own  composition,  there  seems  no  doubt 
that  they  contain  the  ideas  which  had  been  expressed  on  various 
occasions,  and  besides  were  composed  with  due  reference  to 


226  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  character  of  the  speaker  and  convey  something  of  his  special 
style  of  expression. 

Prof.  Saintsbury  in  his  article  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica  on  Villehardouin,  sums  up  very  strikingly  the  place  that 
this  first  great  vernacular  historian's  book  must  occupy. 

He  says :  "It  is  not  impertinent,  and  at  the  same  time  an 
excuse  for  what  has  been  already  said,  to  repeat  that  Villehar- 
douin's  book,  brief  as  it  is,  is  in  reality  one  of  the  capital  books 
of  literature,  not  merely  for  its  merit,  but  because  it  is  the  most 
authentic  and  the  most  striking  embodiment  in  the  contempor- 
ary literature  of  the  sentiments  which  determined  the  action 
of  a  great  and  important  period  of  history.  There  are  but  very 
few  books  which  hold  this  position,  and  Villehardouin's  is  one 
of  them.  If  every  other  contemporary  record  of  the  crusades 
perished,  we  should  still  be  able  by  aid  of  this  to  understand 
and  realize  what  the  mental  attitude  of  crusaders,  of  Teutonic 
Knights,  and  the  rest  was,  and  without  this  we  should  lack  the 
earliest,  the  most  undoubtedly  genuine,  and  the  most  character- 
istic of  all  such  records.  The  very  inconsistency  with  which 
Villehardouin  is  chargeable,  the  absence  of  compunction  with 
which  he  relates  the  changing  of  a  sacred  religious  pilgrimage 
into  something  by  no  means  unlike  a  mere  filibustering  raid  on 
a  great  scale,  add  a  charm  to  the  book.  For,  religious  as  it  is, 
it  is  entirely  free  from  the  very  slightest  touch  of  hypocrisy  or, 
indeed,  of  self-consciousness  of  any  kind.  The  famous  descrip- 
tion of  the  Crusades,  gesta  Dei  per  Francos,  was  evidently  to 
Villehardouin  a  plain  matter-of-fact  description  and  it  no  more 
occurred  to  him  to  doubt  the  divine  favor  being  extended  to  the 
expeditions  against  Alexius  or  Theodore  than  to  doubt  that  it 
was  shown  to  expeditions  against  Saracens  and  Turks." 

It  was  especially  in  the  exploitation  of  biographical  material 
that  the  Thirteenth  Century  chroniclers  were  at  their  best.  Any 
one  who  recalls  Carlyle's  unstinted  admiration  of  Jocelyn  of 
Brakelonds'  life  of  Abbot  Sampson  in  his  essays  Past  and  Pres- 
ent, will  be  sure  that  at  least  one  writer  in  England  had  suc- 
ceeded in  pleasing  so  difficult  a  critic  in  this  rather  thorny  mode 
of  literary  expression.  It  is  easy  to  say  too  much  or  too  little 
about  the  virtues  and  the  vices  of  a  man  whose  biography  one 
has  chosen  to  write.  Jocelyn's  simple,  straightforward  story 


PONTE  ALLE  GRAZIE  (FLORENCE.  LAPO) 


PORTA  ROMANA  (FLORENCE.  N.  PISAXO) 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  227 

wouid  seem  to'  fulfil  the  best  canons  of  modern  criticism  in  this 
respect.  Probably  no  more  vivid  picture  of  a  man  and  his  ways 
was  ever  given  until  BoswelFs  Johnson.  Nor  was  the  English 
chronicler  alone  in  this  respect.  The  Sieur  de  Joinville's  bio- 
graphical studies  of  the  life  of  Louis  IX.  furnish  another  ex- 
ample of  this  literary  mode  at  its  best,  and  modern  writers  of 
biography  could  not  do  better  than  go  back  to  read  these  inti- 
mate pictures  of  the  life  of  a  great  king,  which  are  not  flattered 
nor  overdrawn  but  give  us  the  man  as  he  actually  was. 

The  English  biographic  chronicler  of  the  olden  time  could 
picture  exciting  scenes  without  any  waste  of  words.  A  spec- 
imen of  his  work  will  serve  to  show  the  merit  of  his  style.  Af- 
ter reading  it  one  is  not  likely  to  be  surprised  that  Carlyle 
should  have  so  taken  the  Chronicler  to  heart  nor  been  so  en- 
thusiastic in  his  praise.  It  is  the  very  type  of  that  impression- 
ism in  style  that  has  once  more  in  the  course  of  time  become 
the  fad  of  our  own  day. 

"The  abbot  was  informed  that  the  church  of  Woolpit  was 
vacant,  Walter  of  Coutances  being  chosen  to  the  bishopric  of 
Lincoln.  He  presently  convened  the  prior  and  great  part  of 
the  convent,  and  taking  up  his  story  thus  began:  'You  well 
know  what  trouble  I  had  in  respect  of  the  church  of  Woolpit ; 
and  in  order  that  it  should  be  obtained  for  your  exclusive  use 
I  journeyed  to  Rome  at  your  instance,  in  the  time  of  the  schism 
between  Pope  Alexander  and  Octavian.  I  passed  through  Italy 
at  that  time  when  all  clerks  bearing  letters  of  our  lord  the  Pope 
Alexander  were  taken.  Some  were  imprisoned,  some  hanged, 
and  some,  with  nose  and  lips  cut  off,  sent  forward  to  the  pope, 
to  his  shame  and  confusion.  I,  however,  pretended  to  be 
Scotch ;  and  putting  on  the  garb  of  a  Scotchman,  and  the  ges- 
ture of  one,  I  often  brandished  my  staff,  in  the  way  they  use 
that  weapon  called  a  gaveloc,  at  those  who  mocked  me,  using 
threatening  language,  after  the  manner  of  the  Scotch.  To 
those  that  met  and  questioned  me  as  to  who  I  was,  I  answered 
nothing,  but,  "Ride  ride  Rome,  turne  Cantwereberei."  This 
did  I  to  conceal  myself  and  my  errand,  and  that  I  should  get 
to  Rome  safer  in  the  guise  of  a  Scotchman. 

'''  'Having  obtained  letters  from  the  pope,  even  as  I  wished, 
on  my  return  I  passed  by  a  certain  castle,  as  my  way  led  me 


228  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

from  the  city ;  and  behold  the  officers  thereof  came  about  me, 
laying  hold  upon  me,  and  saying,  "This  vagabond  who  makes 
himself  out  to  be  a  Scotchman  is  either  a  spy  or  bears  letters 
from  the  false  pope  Alexander."  And  while  they  examined 
my  ragged  clothes,  and  my  boots,  and  my  breeches,  and  even 
the  old  shoes  which  I  carried  over  my  shoulders,  after  the  fash- 
ion of  the  Scotch,  I  thrust  my  hand  into  the  little  wallet  which 
I  carried,  wherein  was  contained  the  letter  of  our  lord  the 
pope,  placed  under  a  little  cup  I  had  for  drinking.  The  Lord 
God  and  St.  Edmund  so  permitting,  I  drew  out  both  the  letter 
and  the  cup  together,  so  that,  extending  my  arm  aloft,  I  held 
the  letter  underneath  the  cup.  They  could  see  the  cup  plain 
enough,  but  they  did  not  see  the  letter ;  and  so  I  got  clear  out 
of  their  hands,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord.  Whatever  money  I 
had  about  me  they  took  away;  therefore  I  had  to  beg  from 
door  to  door,  without  any  payment,  until  I  arrived  in  Eng- 
land.' " 

Another  excellent  example  of  the  biographic  prose  of  the 
century,  though  this  is  the  vernacular,  is  Joinville's  life  of  St. 
Louis,  without  doubt  one  of  the  precious  biographical  treasures 
of  all  times.  It  contains  a  vivid  portrait  of  Louis  IX.,  made  by  a 
man  who  knew  him  well  personally,  took  part  with  him  in  some 
of  the  important  actions  of  the  book,  and  in  general  was  an 
active  personage  in  the  affairs  of  the  time.  Those  who  think 
that  rapid  picturesque  description  such  as  vividly  recalls  deeds 
of  battle  was  reserved  for  the  modern  war  correspondent, 
should  read  certain  portions  of  Joinville's  book.  As  an  example 
we  have  ventured  to  quote  the  page  on  which  the  seneschal  his- 
torian himself  recounts  the  role  which  he  played  in  the  famous 
battle  of  Mansourah,  at  which,  with  the  Count  de  Soissons  and 
Pierre  de  Neuville,  he  defended  a  small  bridge  against  the  en- 
emy under  a  hail  of  arrows. 

He  says :  "Before  us  there  were  two  sergeants  of  the  king, 
one  of  whom  was  named  William  de  Boon  and  the  other  John 
of  Gamaches.  Against  these  the  Turks  who  had  placed  them- 
selves between  the  river  and  the  little  tributary,  led  a  whole  mob 
of  villains  on  foot,  who  hurled  at  them  clods  of  turf  or  whatever 
came  to  hand.  Never  could  they  make  them  recoil  upon  us, 
however.  As  a  last  resort  the  Turks  sent  forward  a  foot  soldier 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  229 

who  three  times  launched  Greek  fire  at  them.  Once  William 
de  Boon  received  the  pot  of  green  fire  upon  his  buckler.  If  the 
fire  had  touched  anything  on  him  he  would  have  been  entirely 
burned  up.  We  at  the  rear  were  all  covered  by  arrows  which 
had  missed  the  Sergeants.  It  happened  that  I  found  a  waist- 
coat which  had  been  stuffed  by  one  of  the  Saracens.  I  turned 
the  open  side  of  it  towards  me  and  made  a  shield  out  of  the  vest 
which  rendered  me  great  service,  for  I  was  wounded  by  their 
arrows  in  only  five  places  though  my  horse  was  wounded  in  fif- 
teen. One  of  my  own  men  brought  me  a  banner  with  my  arms 
and  a  lance.  Every  time  then  that  we  saw  that  they  were  press- 
ing the  Royal  Sergeants  we  charged  upon  them  and  they  fled. 
The  good  Count  Soissons,  from  the  point  at  which  we  were, 
joked  with  me  and  said  'Senechal,  let  us  hoot  out  this  rabble,  for 
by  the  headdress  of  God  (this  was  his  favorite  oath)  we  shall 
talk  over  this  day  you  and  I  many  a  time  in  our  ladies'  halls.'  " 

We  have  said  that  the  writing  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
must  have  been  done  to  a  great  extent  for  the  sake  of  the 
women  of  the  time,  and  that  its  very  existence  was  a  proof 
that  the  women  possessed  a  degree  of  culture,  that  might  not 
be  realized  from  the  few  details  that  have  been  preserved  to  us 
of  their  education  and  habits  of  life.  In  this  last  passage  of 
Joinville  we  have  the  proof  of  this,  since  evidently  the  telling 
of  the  stories  of  these  days  of  battle  was  done  mainly  in  order 
that  the  women  folks  might  have  their  share  in  the  excitement 
of  the  campaign,  and  might  be  enabled  vividly  to  appreciate 
what  the  dangers  had  been  and  how  gloriously  their  lords  had 
triumphed.  At  every  period  of  the  world's  history  it  was  true 
that  literature  was  mainly  made  for  women  and  that  some  of 
the  best  portions  of  it  always  concerned  them  very  closely. 

We  have  purposely  left  till  last,  the  greatest  of  the  chroniclers 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  Matthew  Paris,  the  Author  of  the 
Historia  Major,  who  owes  his  surname  doubtless  to  the  fact 
that  he  was  educated  at  the  University  of  Paris.  Instead  of 
trying  to  tell  anything  about  him  from  our  own  slight  personal 
knowledge,  we  prefer  to  quote  the  passage  from  Green's  His- 
tory of  the  English  People,  in  which  one  of  the  greatest  of  our 
modern  English  historians  pays  such  a  magnificent  tribute  to 
his  colleague  of  the  earlier  times : 


230  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

"The  story  of  this  period  of  misrule  has  been  preserved  for 
us  by  an  annalist  whose  pages  glow  with  the  new  outburst  of 
patriotic  feeling  which  this  common  expression  of  the  people 
and  the  clergy  had  produced.  Matthew  Paris  is  the  greatest, 
as  he  is  in  reality  the  last  of  our  monastic  historians.  The 
school  of  St.  Albans  survived  indeed  till  a  far  later  time,  but 
the  writers  dwindle  into  mere  annalists  whose  view  is  bounded 
by  the  Abbey  precincts,  and  whose  work  is  as  colorless  as  it 
is  jejune.  In  Matthew  the  breadth  and  precision  of  the  nar- 
rative, the  copiousness  of  his  information  on  topics  whether 
national  or  European,  the  general  fairness  and  justice  of  his 
comments,  are  only  surpassed  by  the  patriotic  fire  and  enthusi- 
asm of  the  whole.  He  had  succeeded  Roger  of  Wendover  as 
Chronicler  of  St.  Albans;  and  the  Greater  Chronicle,  with 
the  abridgement  of  it  which  has  long  passed  under  the  name 
of  Matthew  of  Westminster,  a  "History  of  the  English,"  and 
the  "Lives  of  the  Earlier  Abbots,"  were  only  a  few  among  the 
voluminous  works  which  attest  his  prodigious  industry.  He 
was  an  eminent  artist  as  well  as  a  historian,  and  many  of  the 
manuscripts  which  are  preserved  are  illustrated  by  his  own 
hand.  A  large  circle  of  correspondents — bishops  like  Grosse- 
teste,  ministers  like  Hubert  de  Burgh,  officials  like  Alexander 
de  Swinford — furnished  him  with  minute  accounts  of  political 
and  ecclesiastical  proceedings.  Pilgrims  from  the  East  and 
Papal  agents  brought  news  of  foreign  events  to  his  scriptorium 
at  St.  Albans.  He  had  access  to  and  quotes  largely  from  state 
documents,  charters,  and  exchequer  rolls.  The  frequency  of 
the  royal  visits  to  the  abbey  brought  him  a  store  of  political 
intelligence  and  Henry  himself  contributed  to  the  great  chroni- 
cle which  has  preserved  with  so  terrible  a  faithfulness  the  mem- 
ory of  his  weakness  and  misgovernment.  On  one  solemn 
feast-day  the  King  recognized  Matthew,  and  bidding  him  sit 
on  the  middle  step  between  the  floor  and  the  throne,  begged 
him  to  write  the  story  of  the  day's  proceedings.  While  on  a 
visit  to  St.  Albans  he  invited  him  to  his  table  and  chamber, 
and  enumerated  by  name  two  hundred  and  fifty  of  the  English 
barons  for  his  information.  But  all  this  royal  patronage  has 
left  little  mark  on  his  work.  "The  case"  as  he  says,  "of  his 
torical  writers  is  hard,  for  if  they  tell  the  truth  they  provoke 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  231 

men,  and  if  they  write  what  is  false  they  offend  God."  With 
all  the  fullness  of  the  school  of  court  historians,  such  as  Bene- 
dict or  Hoveden,  Matthew  Paris  combines  an  independence 
and  patriotism  which  is  strange  to  their  pages.  He  denounces 
with  the  same  unsparing  energy  the  oppression  of  the  Papacy 
and  the  King.  His  point  of  view  is  neither  that  of  a  courtier 
nor  of  a  Churchman,  but  of  an  Englishman,  and  the  new 
national  tone  of  his  chronicle  is  but  an  echo  of  the  national 
sentiment  which  at  last  bound  nobles  and  yeomen  and  Church- 
men together  into  an  English  people." 

We  of  the  Twentieth  Century  are  a  people  of  information 
and  encyclopedias  rather  than  of  literature,  so  that  we  shall 
surely  appreciate  one  important  specimen  of  the  prose  writing 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century  since  it  comprises  the  first  modern 
encyclopedia.  Its  author  was  the  famous  Vincent  of  Beauvais. 
Vincent  consulted  all  the  authors,  sacred  and  profane,  that  he 
could  possibly  lay  hands  on,  and  the  number  of  them  was 
indeed  prodigious.  It  has  often  been  said  by  men  supposed  to 
be  authorities  in  history,  that  the  historians  of  the  Middle  Ages 
had  at  their  disposition  only  a  small  number  of  books,  and  that 
above  all  they  were  not  familiar  with  the  older  historians. 
While  this  was  true  as  regards  the  Greek,  it  was  not  for  the 
Latin  historical  writers.  Vincent  of  Beauvais  has  quotations 
from  Caesar's  De  Bello  Gallico,  from  Sallust's  Catiline  and 
Jugurtha,  from  Quintus  Curtius,  from  Suetonius  and  from 
Valerius  Maximus  and  finally  from  Justin's  Abridgement  of 
Trogus  Pompeius. 

Vincent  had  the  advantage  of  having  at  his  disposition  the 
numerous  libraries  of  the  monasteries  throughout  France,  the 
extent  of  which,  usually  unrealized  in  modern  times,  will  be 
appreciated  from  our  special  chapter  on  the  subject.  Besides 
he  consulted  the  documents  in  the  chapter  houses  of  the  Cathe- 
drals especially  those  of  Paris,  of  Rouen,  of  Laon,  of  Beauvais 
and  of  Bayeux,  which  were  particularly  rich  in  collections  of 
documents.  It  might  be  thought  that  these  libraries  and 
archives  would  be  closely  guarded.  Far  from  being  closed  to 
writers  from  the  outer  world  they  were  accessible  to  all  to  such 
an  extent,  indeed,  that  a  number  of  them  are  mentioned  by 
Vincent  as  public  institutions. 


232  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

His  method  of  collecting  his  information  is  interesting,  be- 
cause it  shows  the  system  employed  by  him  is  practically  that 
which  has  obtained  down  to  our  own  day.  He  made  use  for  his 
immense  investigation  of  a  whole  army  of  young  assistants, 
most  of  whom  were  furnished  him  by  his  own  order,  the  Dom- 
inicans. He  makes  special  mention  in  a  number  of  places  of 
quotations  due  to  their  collaboration.  The  costliness  of  main- 
taining such  a  system  would  have  made  the  completion  of  the 
work  absolutely  impossible  were  it  not  for  the  liberality  of  King 
Louis  IX.,  who  generously  offered  to  defray  the  expenses  of 
the  composition.  Vincent  has  acknowledged  this  by  declaring 
in  his  prefatorial  letter  to  the  King  that,  "you  have  always  liber- 
ally given  assistance  even  to  the  work  of  gathering  the  mater- 
ials." 

Vincent's  method  of  writing  is  quite  as  interesting  as  his 
method  of  compilation  of  facts.  The  great  Dominican  was  not 
satisfied  with  being  merely  a  source  of  information.  The  phil- 
osophy of  history  has  received  its  greatest  Christian  contribution 
from  St.  Augustine's  City  of  God.  In  this  an  attempt  was  made 
to  trace  the  meaning  and  causal  sequence  of  events  as  well 
as  their  mere  external  connection  and  place  in  time.  In  a  les- 
ser medieval  way  Vincent  tried  deliberately  to  imitate  this 
and  besides  writing  history  attempted  to  trace  the  philosophy  of 
it.  For  him,  as  for  the  great  French  philosophic  historian  Bos- 
suet  in  his  Universal  History  five  centuries  later,  everything 
runs  its  provided  race  from  the  creation  to  the  redemption  and 
then  on  toward  the  consummation  of  the  world.  He  describes 
at  first  the  commencements  of  the  Church  from  the  time  of 
Abel,  through  its  progress  under  the  Patriarchs,  the  Prophets, 
Judges,  Kings,  and  leaders  of  the  people,  down  to  the  Birth  of 
Christ.  He  traces  the  history  of  the  Apostles  and  of  the  first 
Disciples,  though  he  makes  it  a  point  to  find  place  for  the  fam- 
ous deeds  of  the  great  men  of  Pagan  antiquity.  He  notes  the 
commencement  of  Empires  and  Kingdoms,  their  glory,  their 
decadence,  their  ruin,  and  the  Sovereigns  who  made  them  illus- 
trious in  peace  and  war.  There  was  much  that  was  defective 
in  the  details  of  history  as  they  were  traced  by  Vincent,  much 
that  was  lacking  in  completeness,  but  the  intention  was  evi- 
dently the  best,  and  patience  and  labor  were  devoted  to  the  sour- 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  233 

ces  of  history  at  his  command.  Perhaps  never  more  than  at 
the  present  moment  have  we  been  in  a  position  to  realize  that 
history  at  its  best  can  be  so  full  of  defects  even  after  further 
centuries  of  consultation  of  documents  and  printed  materials, 
that  we  are  not  likely  to  be  in  the  mood  to  blame  this  first  mod- 
ern historian  very  much.  As  for  the  other  portions  of  his  en- 
cyclopedia, biographic,  literary  and  scientific,  they  were  not 
only  freely  consulted  by  his  contemporaries  and  successors,  but 
we  find  traces  of  their  influence  in  the  writings  and  also  in  the 
decorative  work  of  the  next  two  centuries.  We  have  already 
spoken  of  the  use  of  his  book  in  the  provision  of  subjects  for 
the  ornamentation  of  Cathedrals  and  the  same  thing  might  be 
said  of  edifices  of  other  kinds. 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  Vincent  has  only  a  historic  or 
ecclesiastical  interest.  Dr.  Julius  Pagel,  in  his  Chapter  on 
Medicine  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  Puschmann's  Hand-Book  of 
the  History  of  Medicine,*  says,  "that  there  were  three  writers 
whose  works  were  even  more  popular  than  those  of  Albertus 
Magnus.  These  three  were  Bartholomew,  the  Englishman; 
Thomas,  of  Cantimprato,  and  Vincent,  of  Beauvais,  the  last  of 
whom  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the  most  important  con- 
tributors to  the  generalization  of  scientific  knowledge,  not  alone 
in  the  Thirteenth  but  in  the  immediately  succeeding  centuries. 
His  most  important  work  was  really  an  encyclopedia  of  the 
knowledge  of  his  time.  It  was  called  the  Greater  Triple  Mirror 
and  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  reflected  the  knowledge  of  his 
period.  He  had  the  true  scientific  spirit  and  constantly  cites 
the  authorities  from  whom  his  information  was  derived.  He 
cites  hundreds  of  authors  and  there  is  scarcely  a  subject  that  he 
does  not  touch  on.  One  book  of  his  work  is  concerned  with 
human  anatomy,  and  the  concluding  portion  of  it  is  an  ab- 
breviation of  history  carried  down  to  the  year  1250." 

It  might  be  considered  that  such  a  compend  of  information 
would  be  very  dry-as-dust  reading  and  that  it  would  be  frag- 
mentary in  character  and  little  likely  to  be  attractive  except 
to  a  serious  student.  Dr.  Pagel's  opinion  does  not  agree  with 
this  a  priori  impression.  He  says  with  regard  to  it :  "The  lan- 

''Puschmann.  Hand -Buch  der  Geschichte  der  Medizin,  Jena,  Fischer, 
1902. 


234  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

guage  is  clear,  readily  intelligible,  and  the  informaton  is  con- 
veyed usually  in  an  excellent,  simple  style.  Through  the  in- 
troduction of  interesting  similes  the  contents  do  not  lack  a  cer- 
tain taking  quality,  so  that  the  reading  of  the  work  easily  be- 
comes absorbing."  This  is,  I  suppose,  almost  the  last  thing 
that  might  be  expected  of  a  scientific  teacher  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  because,  after  all,  Vincent  of  Beauvais  must  be  con- 
sidered as  one  of  the  schoolmen,  and  they  are  supposed  to  be 
eminently  arid,  but  evidently,  if  we  are  to  trust  this  testimony 
of  a  modern  German  physician,  only  by  those  who  have  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  read  them. 

One  of  the  most  important  works  of  Thirteenth  Century 
prose  is  the  well-known  Rationale  Divinorum  Officiorum 
(Significance  of  the  Divine  Offices)  written  by  William  Duran- 
dus,  the  Bishop  of  Mende,  in  France,  whose  tomb  and  its  in- 
scription in  the  handsome  old  Gothic  Cathedral  of  Santa  Maria 
Sopra  Minerva,  in  Rome,  shares  with  the  body  of  St.  Catherine 
of  Sienna  the  honor  of  attracting  so  many  visitors.  The  book 
has  been  translated  into  English  under  the  title,  The  Symbolism 
of  Churches  and  Church  Ornaments,  and  has  been  very  widely 
read.  It  was  very  popular  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  the 
best  possible  idea  of  its  subsequent  reputation  can  be  gathered 
from  the  fact,  that  the  Rationale  was  the  first  work  from  the 
pen  of  an  uninspired  writer  to  be  accorded  the  privilege  of  being 
printed.  The  Editio  Princeps,  a  real  first  edition  of  supreme 
value,  appeared  from  the  press  of  John  Fust  in  1459.  The  only 
other  books  that  had  been  printed  at  that  time  were  the 
Psalters  of  1457  and  1459.  This  edition  is,  of  course,  of  the 
most  extreme  rarity.  According  to  the  English  translators  of 
Durandus  the  beauty  of  the  typography  has  seldom  been  ex- 
ceeded. 

The  style  of  Durandus  has  been  praised  very  much  by  the 
critics  of  succeeding  centuries  for  its  straightforwardness,  sim- 
plicity and  brevity.  Most  of  these  qualities  it  evidently  owes 
to  the  hours  spent  by  its  author  in  the  reading  of  Holy  Scrip- 
tures. Durandus  fashioned  his  style  so  much  on  the  sacred 
writings  that  most  of  his  book  possesses  something  of  the  im- 
pressive character  of  the  Bible  itself.  The  impression  derived 
from  it  is  that  of  reading  a  book  on  a  religious  subject  written 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE.  235 

in  an  eminently  suitable  tone  and  spirit.  Most  of  this  impres- 
sion must  be  attributed  without  doubt  to  the  fact,  that  Durandus 
has  not  only  formed  his  style  on  the  Scriptures,  but  has  actually 
incorporated  Scriptural  expressions  in  his  writings  to  such  an 
extent  as  to  make  them  mostly  a  scriptural  composition.  This, 
far  from  being  a  fault,  appears  quite  appropriate  in  his  book 
because  of  its  subject  and  the  method  of  treatment.  A  quota- 
tion from  the  proeme  (as  it  is  in  the  quaint  spelling  of  the 
English  translation)  will  give  the  best  idea  of  this. 

"All  things,  as  pertain  to  offices  and  matters  ecclesiastical, 
be  full  of  divine  significations  and  mysterious,  and  overflow 
with  celestial  sweetness ;  if  so  be  that  a  man  be  diligent  in  his 
study  of  them,  and  know  how  to  draw  HONEY  FROM  THE 
ROCK,  AND  OIL  FROM  THE  HARDEST  STONE.  But 
who  KNOWETH  THE  ORDINANCES  OF  HEAVEN,  OR 
CAN  FIX  THE  REASONS  THEREOF  UPON  THE 
EARTH?  for  he  that  prieth  into  their  majesty,  is  overwhelmed 
by  the  glory  of  them.  Of  a  truth  THE  WELL  IS  DEEP, 
AND  I  HAVE  NOTHING  TO  DRAW  WITH :  unless  he 
giveth  it  unto  me  WHO  GIVETH  TO  ALL  MEN  LIBERAL- 
LY, AND  UPBRAIDETH  NOT:  so  that  WHILE  I  JOUR- 
NEY THROUGH  THE  MOUNTAINS  I  may  DRAW 
WATER  WITH  JOY  OUT  OF  THE  WELLS  OF  SALVA- 
TION. Wherefore  albeit  of  the  things  handed  down  from  our 
forefathers,  capable  we  are  not  to  explain  all,  yet  if  among 
them  there  be  any  thing  which  is  done  without  reason  it  should 
be  forthwith  put  away.  Wherefore,  I,  WILLIAM,  by  the 
alone  tender  mercy  of  God,  Bishop  of  the  Holy  Church  which 
is  in  Mende,  will  knock  diligently  at  the  door,  if  so  be  that 
THE  KEY  OF  DAVID  will  open  unto  me :  that  the  King  may 
BRING  ME  INTO  HIS  TREASURE?  and  shew  unto  me  the 
heavenly  pattern  which  was  shewed  unto  Moses  in  the  mount : 
so  that  I  may  learn  those  things  which  pertain  to  Rites  Ecclesi- 
astical whereof  they  teach  and  what  they  signify:  and  that  I 
may  be  able  plainly  to  reveal  and  make  manifest  the  reasons 
of  them,  by  HIS  help,  WHO  HATH  ORDAINED 
STRENGTH  OUT  OF  THE  MOUTH  OF  BABES  AND 
SUCKLINGS :  WHOSE  SPIRITS  BLOWETH  WHERE  IT 


236  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

LISTETH:  DIVIDING  TO  EACH  SEVERALLY  AS  IT 
WILL  to  the  praise  and  glory  of  the  Trinity." 

This  passage  alone  of  Durandus  would  serve  as  an  excellent 
refutation  of  the  old-time  Protestant  tradition,  fortunately  now 
dying  out  though  not  as  yet  entirely  eradicated,  which  stated 
so  emphatically  that  the  Bible  was  not  allowed  to  be  read  before 
Luther's  time. 

Those  who  wish  to  obtain  a  good  idea  of  Durandus'  style 
and  the  way  he  presents  his  material,  can  obtain  it  very  well 
from  his  chapter  on  Bells,  the  first  two  paragraphs  of  which 
we  venture  to  quote.  They  will  be  found  quite  as  full  of  in- 
teresting information  in  their  way  as  any  modern  writer  might 
have  brought  together,  and  have  the  dignity  and  simplicity  of 
the  best  modern  prose. 

"Bells  are  brazen  vessels,  and  were  first  invented  in  Nola,  a 
city  of  Campania.  Wherefore  the  larger  bells  are  called  Cam- 
panae,  from  Campania  the  district,  and  the  smaller  Nolae,  from 
Nola  the  town. 

"You  must  know  that  bells,  by  the  sound  of  which  the  people 
assembleth  together  to  the  church  to  hear,  and  the  Clergy  to 
preach,  IN  THE  MORNING  THE  MERCY  OF  GOD  AND 
HIS  POWER  BY  NIGHT  do  signify  the  silver  trumpets,  by 
which  under  the  Old  Law  the  people  was  called  together  unto 
sacrifice.  (Of  these  trumpets  we  shall  speak  in  our  Sixth 
Book.)  For  just  as  the  watchmen  in  a  camp  rouse  one  another 
by  trumpets,  so  do  the  Ministers  of  the  Church  excite  each 
other  by  the  sound  of  bells  to  watch  the  livelong  night  against 
the  plots  of  the  Devil.  Wherefore  our  brazen  bells  are  more 
sonorous  than  the  trumpets  of  the  Old  Law,  because  then  GOD 
was  known  in  Judea  only,  but  now  in  the  whole  earth.  They 
be  also  more  durable :  For  they  signify  that  the  teaching  of  the 
New  Testament  will  be  more  lasting  than  the  trumpets  and 
sacrifices  of  the  Old  Law,  namely,  even  unto  the  end  of  the 
world. 

"Again  bells  do  signify  preachers,  who  ought  after  the  like- 
ness of  a  bell  to  exhort  the  faithful  unto  faith :  the  which  was 
typified  in  that  the  LORD  commanded  Moses  to  make  a  vest- 
ment for  the  High  Priest  who  entered  into  the  Holy  of  Holies. 
Also  the  cavity  of  the  bell  denoteth  the  mouth  of  the  preacher, 


THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  PROSE. 


237 


according  to  the  saying  of  the  Apostle,  I  AM  BECOME  AS 
SOUNDING  BRASS  ON  A  TINKLING  CYMBAL." 

Of  course  there  are  what  we  would  be  apt  to  consider  ex- 
aggerations of  symbolic  meanings  and  far-fetched  explanations 
and  references,  but  this  was  of  the  taste  of  the  time  and  has 
not  in  subsequent  centuries  been  so  beyond  the  canons  of  good 
taste  as  at  present.  Durandus  goes  on  to  tell  that  the  hardness 
of  the  metal  of  the  bell  signifies  fortitude  in  the  mind  of  the 
preacher,  that  the  wood  of  the  frame  on  which  the  bell  hangeth 
doth  signify  the  wood  of  our  Lord's  Cross,  that  the  rope  by 
which  the  bell  is  strung  is  humility  and  also  showeth  the 
measure  of  life,  that  the  ring  in  the  length  of  the  rope  is  the 
crown  of  reward  for  perseverance  unto  the  end,  and  then 
proceeds  to  show  why  and  how  often  the  bells  are  rung  and 
what  the  significance  of  each  ringing  is.  He  explains  why  the 
bells  are  silent  for  three  days  before  Easter  and  also  during 
times  of  interdict,  and  gives  as  the  justification  for  this  last  the 
quotation  from  the  Prophet  "I  WILL  MAKE  THY  TONGUE 
CLEAVE  TO  THE  ROOF  OF  THY  MOUTH  FOR  THEY 
ARE  A  REBELLIOUS  HOUSE." 

Even  these  few  specimens  of  the  prose  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, will  serve  to  show  that  the  writers  of  the  period  could  ex- 
press themselves  with  a  vigor  and  directness  which  have  made 
their  books  interesting  reading  for  generations  long  after  their 
time,  and  which  stamp  their  authors  as  worthy  of  a  period  that 
found  enduring  and  adequate  modes  of  expression  for  every 
form  of  thought  and  feeling. 


STONE  CARVING   (PARIS) 


238  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XV 
ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA. 


The  last  place  in  the  world,  perhaps,  that  one  would  look 
for  a  great  impulse  to  the  development  of  the  modern  drama, 
which  is  entirely  a  new  invention,  an  outgrowth  of  Christian 
culture  and  has  practically  no  connection  with  the  classic 
drama,  would  be  in  the  life  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  His  utter 
simplicity,  his  thorough-going  and  cordial  poverty,  his  sincere 
endeavor  all  during  his  life  to  make  little  of  himself,  might 
seem  quite  enough  to  forbid  any  thought  of  him  as  the  father 
of  a  literary  movement  of  this  kind.  "The  poor  little  man  of 
God,"  however,  as  he  liked  to  call  himself,  in  his  supreme  ef- 
fort to  get  back  to  nature  and  out  of  the  ways  of  the  conven- 
tional world,  succeeded  in  accomplishing  a  number  of  utterly 
unexpected  results.  His  love  for  nature  led  to  his  wonderful 
expression  of  his  feelings  in  his  favorite  hymn,  one  of  the  first 
great  lyrical  outbursts  in  modern  poetry,  a  religious  poem 
which  as  we  shall  see  in  the  chapter  on  the  Father  of  the  Ren- 
aissance, Renan  declares  can  only  be  appreciated  properly  by 
comparing  it  with  the  old  Hebrew  psalms,  beside  which  it  is 
worthy  to  be  placed. 

Those  who  know  the  life  of  St.  Francis  best  will  easily  ap- 
preciate how  dramatic,  though  unconsciously  so,  were  all  the 
actions  of  his  life.  After  all,  his  utter  renunciation  of  all 
things,  his  taking  of  holy  poverty  to  be  his  bride,  his  address 
to  the  birds,  his  sisters,  his  famous  question  of  the  butcher  as  to 
why  he  killed  his  brothers,  the*  sheep,  his  personification  of  the 
sun  and  the  moon  and  even  of  the  death  of  the  body  as  his 
brothers  and  sisters,  are  all  eminently  dramatic  moments.  His 
life  is  full  of  incidents  that  lent  themselves,  because  of  their 
dramatic  quality,  to  the  painters  of  succeeding  centuries  as  the 
subjects  of  their  striking  pictures.  Before  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury Giotto  had  picked  out  some  of  the  most  interesting  of 
these  for  the  decorative  illustration  of  the  upper  church  at  As- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  239 

sisi.  During  the  succeeding  century,  the  author  of  the  Little 
Flowers  of  St.  Francis,  embodied  many  of  these  beautiful 
scenes  in  his  little  work,  where  they  have  been  the  favorite 
reading  of  poets  for  many  centuries  since. 

It  should  not  be  such  a  surprise  as  it  might  otherwise  be, 
then,  to  find  that  St.  Francis  may  be  considered  in  one  sense 
as  the  father  of  the  modern  drama.  The  story  is  a  very  pretty 
one  and  has  an  additional  value  because  it  has  been  illustrated 
by  no  less  a  brush  than  that  of  Giotto.  One  Christmas  Eve 
just  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  St.  Francis 
gathered  round  him  some  of  the  poor  people  living  outside  of 
the  town  of  Assisi,  in  order  to  recall  vividly  to  them  the  great 
event  which  had  taken  place  on  that  night  so  many  centuries 
before.  A  little  figure  of  a  child,  dressed  in  swaddling  clothes, 
was  laid  on  some  straw  in  a  manger  with  the  breath  of  the 
nearby  animals  to  warm  it.  To  this  manger  throne  of  the 
Child  King  of  Bethlehem,  there  came  in  adoration,  after  the 
hymns  that  recalled  the  angels'  visit*  first  some  of  the  shep- 
herds from  the  surrounding  country  and  then  some  of  the 
country  people  who  represented  the  kings  from  the  East  with 
their  retinues,  bringing  with  them  their  royal  gifts.  After 
this  little  scene,  probably  one  of  the  first  Nativity  plays  that 
had  ever  been  given,  St.  Francis,  according  to  the  old  legend, 
took  the  little  image  in  his  arms  and  in  an  excess  of  devotion 
pressed  it  to  his  heart.  According  to  the  old-time  story,  the 
infant  came  to  life  in  his  embrace  and  putting  its  little  arms 
around  his  neck  embraced  him  in  return.  Of  course  our 
modern  generation  is  entirely  too  devoted  to  "common  sense" 
to  accept  any  such  pretty,  pious  story  as  this  as  more 
ihan  a  beautiful  poetic  legend.  The  legend  has  provided 
a  subject  for  poet  and  painter  many  a  time  in  subsequent 
centuries.  Perhaps  never  has  it  been  used  with  better 
effect  than  by  Giotto,  whose  representation  is  one  of  the 
favorite  pictures  on  the  wall  of  the  upper  church  of  As- 
sisi. Whether  the  little  baby  figure  of  the  play  actually 
came  to  life  in  his  arms  or  not  we  do  not  know,  but  one  thing 
is  certain,  that  infant  modern  dramatic  literature  did  come  to 
life  at  the  moment  and  that  before  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  it  was  to  have  a  vigor  and  an  influence  that  made  it 


240  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

one  of  the  great  factors  in  the  social  life  of  the  period.  The 
Franciscans  were  soon  spread  over  the  world.  With  filial  rev- 
erence they  took  with  them  all  the  customs  of  their  loved  Fa- 
ther of  Assisi,  and  especially  such  as  appealed  to  the  masses 
and  brought  home  to  them  in  a  vivid  way  the  great  truths  of 
religion.  By  the  middle  of  the  century  many  of  the  towns  had 
cycles  of  mystery  plays  given  at  various  times  during  the  year, 
associated  with  the  different  feasts  and  illustrating  and  enforc- 
ing the  lessons  of  the  liturgy  for  tht  people  in  a  manner  so 
effective  that  it  has  probably  never  been  equaled  before  or 
since. 

While  the  most  potent  factor  in  the  dissemination  of  the 
early  religious  drama  can  be  traced  to  Francis  and  the  Fran- 
ciscans, they  were  but  promoters  of  a  movement  already  well 
begun.  Mystery  plays  were  attempted  before  the  Thirteenth 
Century  in  England  and  in  North  France.  There  is  a  well- 
known  story  from  Matthew  Paris,  who  wrote  about  the  mid- 
dle of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  of  one  Geoffrey  who  afterwards 
became  Abbot  of  St.  Albans.  While  yet  a  secular  he  borrowed 
certain  precious  religious  vestments  to  be  used  in  some  sort  of 
a  miracle  play  in  honor  of  St.  Catherine.  During  the  perfor- 
mance of  the  play,  these  vestments  were  destroyed  by  fire  and 
Geogory  was  so  much  afflicted  by  the  misfortune  that  in  a  spirit 
of  reparation  he  became  a  religious  in  the  Abbey  of  St.  Albans. 
This  must  have  been  about  the  beginning  of  the  Twelfth  Cen- 
tury. Towards  the  end  of  this  century  mystery  plays  were 
not  infrequent,  though  not  in  anything  like  the  developed  form 
nor  popular  character  which  they  acquired  during  th;  Thir- 
teenth Century.  Fitz  Stephen,  writing  the  life  of  St.  Thomas 
a  Becket,  towards  the  end  of  the  Twelfth  Century,  contrasts  the 
holier  plays  of  London  in  his  days  with  the  theatrical  specta- 
cles of  ancient  Rome.  The  plays  he  mentioned  were,  however, 
scarcely  more  than  slight  developments  of  Church  ceremonial 
with  almost  literal  employment  of  scripture  and  liturgical  lan- 
guage. 

The  first  cycle  of  mystery  plays  of  which  there  is  definite 
mention  is  that  of  Chester.  According  to  the  proclamation  of 
the  Chester  plays,  the  representation  of  this  cycle  dates  in  some 
form  from  the  mayoralty  of  John  Arneway,  who  was  the 


ST.  FRANCIS'  NATIVITY  PLAY  (GIOTTO) 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  241 

Mayor  of  Chester,  between  1268  and  1276.  Of  the  series  of 
plays  as  given  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  there  are  few  remains. 
It  is  probable,  even,  that  at  this  early  date  they  were  not  acted 
in  English  but  in  French.  English  plays  were  probably  first 
given  in  some  of  the  Cathedral  towns  along  the  east  coast  oi 
England,  and  perhaps  York  should  have  the  credit  of  this  inno- 
vation. It  is  easy  to  understand  how  the  simpler  dramatic  addi- 
tions to  the  ritual  of  the  Church  would  inevitably  develop  in 
the  earnest  and  very  full  religious  life  of  the  people  which 
came  with  the  building  of  the  cathedrals,  the  evolution  of 
Church  ceremonial  and  the  social  life  fostered  by  the  trade- 
guilds  of  the  time.  While  we  have  none  of  the  remains  of  the 
actual  plays  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
an  excellent  idea  of  their  form  and  content  can  be  gathered 
from  the  English  mystery  plays,  that  have  recently  been  edited 
in  modern  form  and  which  serve  to  show  the  characteristics  of 
the  various  cycles. 

It  might  perhaps  be  thought  that  these  mystery  plays  would 
not  furnish  any  great  amount  of  entertainment  for  the  popu- 
lace, especially  after  they  had  seen  them  a  certain  number  of 
times.  The  yearly  repetition  might  naturally  be  expected  to 
bring  with  it  before  long  a  satiety  that  would  lead  to  inatten- 
tion. As  is  well  known,  however,  there  is  an  enduring  inter- 
est about  these  old  religious  stories  that  makes  them  of  much 
greater  attractiveness  than  most  ordinary  historical  traditions. 
Many  a  faithful  reader  of  the  Bible  finds  constantly  renewed 
interest  in  the  old  Biblical  stories  in  spite  of  frequent  repetition. 

Their  significance  to  the  eye  of  faith  in  the  Middle  Ages  gave 
them,  beyond  any  doubt,  that  quality  which  in  any  literary 
work  will  exemplify  and  fulfil  Horace's  dictum,  decies  repe- 
tita  placebit.  Besides,  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  men 
and  women  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  had  not  the  superficial 
facilities  of  the  printing  press  to  cloy  their  intellectual  curi- 
osity, and  by  trivial  titillation  make  them  constantly  crave 
novelty. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  these  were 
religious  plays,  that  they  were  always  so  serious  as  to  be 
merely  instructive  without  being  amusing.  A  large  fund  of 
amusement  was  injected  into  the  old  biblical  stories  by  the 


242  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

r 
writers  of  the  different  cycles  and  undoubtedly  the  actors 

themselves  added  certain  personal  elements  in  this  matter, 
which  still  further  enhanced  some  of  the  comical  aspects  of  the 
solemn  stories.  Nearly  always  the  incidents  of  the  Scriptural 
narrative  though  followed  more  or  less  literally,  were  treated 
with  a  large  humanity  that  could  scarcely  fail  to  introduce  ele- 
ments of  humor  into  the  dramatic  performances.  Such  liber- 
ties, however,  were  taken  only  with  characters  not  mentioned  by 
the  Bible — the  inventions  of  the  writers.  A  series  of  quotations 
from  the  Chester  Cycle  of  Plays  will  best  illustrate  this.  We 
give  them  in  the  quaint  spelling  of  the  oldest  version  extant. 
The  scene  we  quote  is  from  the  'play  dealing  with  Noah's 
flood  and  pictures  Noah's  wife  as  a  veritable -shrew. 

NOYE — 

Wyffe,  in  this  vessel  we  shall  be  kepte : 
My  children  and  thou,  I  woulde  in  ye  lepte. 
NOYE'S  WIFFE — 

In  fayth,  Noye,  I  hade  as  leffe  thou  slepte! 

For  all  thy  frynishe  fare, 
I  will  not  doe  after  thy  reade. 
NOYE — 

Good  wyffe,  doe  nowe  as  I  thee  bydde. 
NOYF/S  WIFFE — 

Be  Christe!  not  or  I  see  more  neede, 

Though  thou  stande  all  the  daye  and  stare. 
NOYE — 

Lorde,  that  wemen  be  crabbed  aye, 
And  non  are  meke,  I  dare  well  saye, 
This  is  well  scene  by  me  to  daye, 

In  witnesse  of  you  ichone  (each  one). 
Goodwiffe,  lett  be  all  this  beare, 
That  thou  maiste  in  this  place  heare; 
For  all  the  wene  that  thou  arte  maister, 
And  so  thou  arte,  by  Sante  John ! 

All  Noah's  artful  concession  of  his  wife's  mastery  in  the 
household  does  not  avail  to  move  her  :md  so  he  tries  objurga- 
tion. 

NOYE — 

Wifre,  come  in:  why  standes  thou  their? 
Thou  arte  ever  frowarde,  I  dare  well  sweare; 
Come  in,  one  Codes  halfe!  tyme  yt  were, 
For  feare  leste  that  we  drewne. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  243 

NOYE'S  WIFFE — 

Yes,  sir,  sette  up  youer  saile, 
And  rowe  fourth  with  evill  haile, 
For  withouten  (anye)  fayle 

I  will  not  oute  of  this  towne; 
But  I  have  my  gossippes  everyechone, 
One  foote  further  I  will  not  gone : 
The  shall  not  drowne,  by  Sainte  John! 

And  I  may  save  ther  life. 
The  loven  me  full  well,  by  Christe! 
But  thou  lett  them  into  thy  cheiste,  (ark) 
Elles  rowe  nowe  wher  thee  leiste, 

And  gette  thee  a  newe  wiffe. 

It  is  evident  that  he  will  not  succeed  so  Noah,  wise  doubtless 
with  the  wisdom  of  experience,  forbears  to  urge  but  appeals 
to  her  sons  to  bring  her. 

NOYE— 

Seme,  sonne,  loe!  thy  mother  is  wrawe: 
Forsooth,  such  another  I  doe  not  knowe. 

SEM— 

Father,  I  shall  fetch  her  in,  I  trowe, 

Withoutten  anye  fayle. — 
Mother,  my  father  after  thee  sends, 
And  byddes  thee  into  yeinder  shippe  wende. 
Loke  up  and  see  the  wynde, 

For  we  bene  readye  to  sayle. 

NOYE'S  WIFFE — 

Seme,  goe    againe  to  hym,  I  saie; 

I  will  not  come  theirin  to  daye. 
NOYE — 

Come  in,  wiffe,  in  twentye  devilles  waye ! 

Or  elles  stand  there  without. 
HAM— 

Shall  we  all  feche  her  in? 
NOYE— 

Yea,  sonnes,  in  Christe  blessinge  and  myne! 

I  woulde  you  hied  you  be-tyme, 

For  of  this  flude  I  am  in  doubte. 

JEFFATTE — 

Mother,  we  praye  you  all  together, 
For  we  are  heare,  youer  owne  childer, 
Come  into  the  shippe  for  feare  of  the  weither, 
For  his  love  that  you  boughte! 


244  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES 

NOYE'S  WIFFE — 

That  will  not  I,  for  all  youer  call, 
But  I  have  my  gossippes  all. 
SEM-— 

In  faith,  mother,  yett  you  shalle, 

Wheither  thou  wylte  or  (nought). 

(Her  sons  bring  her  in;  as  she  steps  aboard  she  is  greeted  by  Noah.) 
NOYE — 

Welckome,  wiffe,  into  this  botte. 
NOYE'S  WIFFE — 

Have  thou  that  for  thy  note!  (Giving  her  husband  a  cuff  on  the 

head). 
NOYE— 

Ha,  ha !  Marye,  this  is  hotte ! 
It  is  good  for  to  be  still. 
Ha!  children,  me  thinkes  my  botte  remeves, 
Our  tarryinge  heare  highlye  me  greves, 
Over  the  lande  the  watter  spreades; 
God  doe  as  he  will. 

This  quotation  will  give  a  good  idea  of  the  human  interest 
of  these  Mystery  Plays  and  serve  to  show  that  they  did  not 
fail  in  dramatic  power  for  any  lack  of  humor  or  acute  obser- 
vation. It  would  be  easy  to  illustrate  this  much  more  amply. 
The  opportunities  to  enjoy  these  plays  were  abundant.  We 
have  said  that  the  Chester  Cycle  is  the  one  of  which  there  is 
earliest  mention.  The  method  of  its  presentation  has  been  de- 
scribed by  Mr.  Henry  Morley  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  Eng- 
lish Writers.  He  says: 

"There  were  scaffolds  erected  for  spectators  in  those  places 
to  which  the  successive  pageants  would  be  drawn ;  and  a  citi- 
zen who  on  the  first  day  saw  in  any  place  the  first  pageant 
(that  of  the  Fall  of  Lucifer),  if  he  kept  his  place  and  returned 
to  it  in  good  time  on  each  successive  morning,  would  see  the 
Scripture  story,  as  thus  told,  pass  in  its  right  order  before  him. 
Each  pageant  was  drawn  on  four  or  six  wheels,  and  had  a 
room  in  which  the  actors  and  properties  were  concealed,  under 
the  upper  room  or  stage  on  which  they  played." 

Mr.  Morley  then  describes  the  action  of  the  various  parts  of 
the  cycle,  showing  how  clearly  the  lessons  of  the  Old  Testament 
history  and  its  symbolic  and  typical  meaning  were  pointed 
out  so  that  the  spectators  could  not  miss  them. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  245 

How  completely  the  story  of  the  Bible  was  told  may  be 
judged  from  the  order  of  the  Pageants  of  the  Play  of  Corpus 
Christi,  in  the  time  of  the  mayoralty  of  William  Alne,  in  the 
third  year  of  the  reign  of  King  Henry  V.,  compiled  by  Roger 
Burton,  town  clerk. 

1.  TANNERS. 

God  the  Father  Almighty  creating  and  forming  the  'heavens, 
angels  and  archangels,  Lucifer  and  the  angels  that  fell  with 
him  to  hell. 

2.  PLASTERERS. 

God  the  Father,  in  his  own  substance,  creating  the  earth  and 
all  which  is  therein,  in  the  space  of  five  days. 

3.  CARDMAKERS. 

God  the  Father  creating  Adam  of  the  clay  of  the  earth  and 
making  Eve  of  Adam's  rib,  and  inspiring  them  with  the  breath 
of  life. 

4.  FULLERS. 

God  forbidding  Adam  and  Eve  to  eat  of  the  tree  of  life. 

5.  COOPERS. 

Adam  and  Eve  and  a  tree  betwixt  them;  the  serpent  deceiving 
them  with  apples;  God  speaking  to  them  and  cursing  the  ser- 
pent, and  with  a  sword  driving  them  out  of  paradise. 

6.  ARMOURERS. 

Adam  and  Eve,  an  angel  with  a  spade  and  distaff  assigning 
them  work. 

7.  GAUNTERS  (Glovers). 

Abel  and  Cain  offering  victims  in  sacrifice. 

8.  SHIPWRIGHTS. 

God  warning  Noah  to  make  an  Ark  of  floatable  wood. 

9.  PESSONERS  (Fishmongers)  and  MARINERS. 

Noah  in  the  Ark,  with  his  wife;  the  three  sons  of  Noah  with 
their  wives ;  with  divers  animals. 

10.  PARCHMENT-MAKERS,  BOOKBINDERS. 

Abraham  sacrificing  his  son,  Isaac,  on  an  altar,  a  boy  with 
wood  and  an  angel. 

11.  HOSIERS. 

Moses  lifting  up  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness;  King  Pharaoh; 
eight  Jews  wondering  and  expecting. 

12.  SPICERS. 

A  Doctor  declaring  the  sayings  of  the  prophets  of  the  future 
birth  of  Christ.  Mary;  an  angel  saluting  her;  Mary  saluting 
Elizabeth. 

13.  PEWTERERS,  FOUNDERS. 

Mary,  Joseph  wishing  to  put  her  away;  an  angel  speaking  to 
them  that  they  go  to  Bethlehem. 


246  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

14.  TYLERS. 

Mary,  Joseph,  a  midwife;  the  Child  born,  lying  in  a  manger 
betwixt  an  ox  and  an  ass,  and  an  angel  speaking  to  the  shep- 
herds, and  to  the  players  in  the  next  pageant. 

15.  CHANDLERS. 

The  shepherds  talking  together,  the  star  in  the  East;  an  angel 
giving  the  shepherds  the  good  tidings  of  the  Child's  birth. 

16.  17.     ORFEVERS   (Goldsmiths),  GOLDBEATERS,  MONEYMAKERS. 

The  three  kings  coming  from  the  East,  Herod  asking  them 
about  the  child  Jesus;  the  son  of  Herod,  two  counsellors,  and 
a  messenger.  Mary  with  the  Child,  a  star  above,  and  the  three 
kings  offering  gifts. 

How  completely  the  people  of  each  town  were  engaged  in 
the  presentation  of  the  plays,  can  be  judged  from  the  following 
supplementary  list  of  the  other  trade  guilds  that  took  parts. 
Many  of  them  bear  quaint  names,  which  are  now  obsolete 
They  included  the  girdellers,  makers  of  girdles;  nailers,  saw- 
yers, lorymers  (bridle  makers),  the  spurriers  (makers  of 
spurs),  the  fevers  or  smiths,  the  curriers,  the  plumbers,  the  pat- 
tern-makers, the  bottlers,  the  cap-makers,  the  skinners,  the 
bladesmiths,  the  sealers,  the  buckle-makers,  the  cordwainers,  the 
bowyers  (makers  of  bows),  the  fletchers  (arrow-featherers), 
the  tilemakers,  the  hayresters  (workers  in  horse  hair),  the  boi- 
lers (bowl-makers),  the  tunners,  the  sellers  or  saddlers;  the 
fuystours  (makers  of  saddle  tree),  the  verrours  (glaziers),  the 
broggours  (brokers),  the  dubbers  (refurbishers  of  clothes), 
the  luminers  or  illuminators,  the  scriveners,  the  drapers,  the 
potters,  the  weavers,  the  hostlers  and  mercers.  The  men  of  no 
occupation,  however  menial  it  may  seem  to  us,  were  barred. 
Each  of  these  companies  had  a  special  pageant  with  a  portion 
of  the  Old  or  New  Testament  to  represent  and  in  each  suc- 
ceeding year  spent  much  of  their  spare  time  in  preparing  for 
their  dramatic  performance,  studying  and  practising  their 
parts  and  making  everything  ready  for  competition  with  their 
brother  craftsmen  in  the  other  pageants.  Only  those  who 
know  the  supreme  educative  value  of  dramatic  representations 
for  those  actively  interested  in  them,  will  appreciate  all  that 
these  plays  meant  for  popular  education  in  the  best  sense  of  the 
word,  but  all  can  readily  understand  how  much  they  stood  for 
in  popular  occupation  of  mind  with  high  thoughts  and  how 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  247 

much  they  must  have  acted  as  a  preventive  of  debasing  dis- 
sipations. 

It  is  extremely  interesting  to  follow  out  some  of  the  details 
of  the  management  of  these  Mystery  Plays.  We  shall  find  in 
even  the  meagre  accounts  that  we  have  of  them,  sufficient 
to  show  us  that  men  were  not  expected  to  work  for  nothing, 
nor  even  to  be  satisfied  with  what  compensation  there  might 
be  in  the  honor  of  being  chosen  for  certain  parts,  nor  in  the 
special  banquets  that  were  provided  for  the  actors  after  the 
performances.  A  definite  salary  was  paid  to  each  of  the  actors 
according  to  the  importance  of  the  part  he  took.  Not  only  this, 
but  the  loans  of  garments  for  costume  purposes,  or  of  furni- 
ture or  other  material  for  stage  properties,  was  repaid  by  def- 
inite sums  of  money.  These  are  not  large,  but,  considering 
the  buying  power  of  money  at  that  time  and  the  wages  paid 
workmen,  which  enabled  them  to  live  at  least  as  well,  com- 
paratively, as  modern  workmen,  the  compensation  is  ample. 
Mr.  Morley,  in  the  fourth  volume  of  his  "English  Writers," 
has  given  us  some  of  these  details  and  as  they  have  a  special 
social  interest  and  the  old  documents  rejoice  in  a  comic  literal- 
ness  of  statement,  they  deserve  citation. 

When  about  to  set  up  a  play,  each  guild  chose  for  itself  a 
competent  manager,  to  whom  it  gave  the  rule  of  the  pageant, 
and  voted  a  fixed  sum  for  its  expenses.  The  play-book  and 
the  standing  wardrobe  and  other  properties  were  handed  over 
to  him,  and1  he  was  accountable,  of  course,  for  their  return 
after  the  close  of  the  performances.  The  manager  had  to  ap- 
point his  actors,  to  give  them  their  several  parts  written  out 
for  them  (perhaps  by  the  prompter,  who  was  a  regular  of- 
ficial), and  to  see  to  the  rehearsals,  of  which  there  would  be 
two  for  an  old  play  and  at  least  five  for  a  new  one. 

At  rehearsal  time,  as  well  as  during  the  great  performance 
the  actors  ate  and  drank  at  the  cost  of  the  guild,  ending  all 
with  a  supper,  at  which  they  had  roast  beef  and  roast  goose, 
with  wine  for  the  chiefs,  and  beer  for  the  rest.  The  actors 
were  paid,  of  course,  according  to  the  length  of  their  parts  and 
quantity  of  business  in  them,  not  their  dignity.  Thus  in  a 
play  setting  forth  the  Trial  and  Crucifixion  of  our  Lord,  the 
actors  of  Herod  and  Caiaphas  received  each  33.  4d.;  the  rep- 


248  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

resentative  of  Annas,  2s.  2d. ;  and  of  Christ  2s. ;  which  was  also 
the  sum  paid  to  each  actor  in  the  parts  of  His  executioners, 
and  6d.  more  than  was  paid  for  acting  the  Devil  or  Judas.  In 
the  united  plays  of  the  "Descent  into  Hell"  and  the  "Ascen- 
sion," the  payment  was  to  the  actor  v\ho  represented  Christ, 
is.  6d. ;  and  is.  4d.  to  him  who  played  the  Devil.  In  one  play 
we  find  this  gradation  of  the  scale  of  payment  to  performers : — 
"Paid,  for  playing  of  Peter,  xvid. ;  to  two  damsels,  xnd. ;  to  the 
demon,  vid. ;  to  Fawston  *for  hanging  Judas,  ivd. ;  paid  to 
Fawston  for  cock-crowing,  ivd." 

Of  the  costume  of  the  actors,  and  of  the  stage  furniture  a 
tolerably  clear  notion  is  also  to  be  drawn  from  the  Coventry 
account-books,  of  which  Mr.  Sharp  printed  all  that  bears  upon 
such  questions.  They  record,  of  course,  chiefly  repairs  and 
renewals  of  stage  properties  and  wardrobe.  "In  one  year  Pil- 
ate has  a  new  green  cloak,  in  another  a  new  hat.  Pilate's 
wife  was  Dame  Procula,  and  we  have  such  entries  as,  'For 
mending  of  Dame  Procula's  garments,  vnd.'  'To  reward  to 
Mrs.  Grimsby  for  lending  of  her  gear  for  Pilate's  wife,  xnd/ 
'For  a  quart  of  wine  for  hiring  Porcula's  gown,  nd/  No  actor 
had  naked  hands.  Those  not  in  masks  had  their  faces  pre- 
pared by  a  painter.  The  costume  of  each  part  was  traditional, 
varied  little  in  the  course  of  years,  and  much  of  it  was  origi- 
nally designed  after  the  pictures  and  painted  sculpture  in  the 
churches.  As  in  those  medieval  decorations,  gilding  was  used 
freely;  the  performer  of  Christ  wore  a  gilt  peruke  and  beard, 
so  did  Peter,  and  probably  all  the  Apostles  or  saints  who  would 
be  represented  on  church  walls  with  a  gilt  nimbus."  Christ's 
coat  was  of  white  sheep-skin,  painted  and  gilded,  with  a  girdle 
and  red  sandals.  The  part  of  the  High  Priests  Caiaphas  and 
Annas  were  often  played  in  ecclesiastical  robes  hired  from  a 
church,  a  practice  (one  sad  result  of  which  because  of  fire  has 
already  been  noted)  that  was  eventually  condemned  as  likely 
to  lead  to  disrespect  for  sacred  objects.  Herod,  who  wore  a 
mask,  was  set  up  as  a  sceptred  royal  warrior  in  a  gilt  and  sil- 
vered helmet,  in  armour  and  gown  of  blue  satin,  with  such 
Saracen  details  of  dress  as  the  Crusaders  connected  with  the 
worship  of  Mahomet,  including  the  crooked  faulchion,  which 
was  gilt.  The  tormentors  of  Christ  wore  jackets  of  black 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  249 

buckram  with  nails  and  dice  upon  them.  The  Virgin  Mary 
was  crowned,  as  in  her  images.  The  angels  wore  white  sur- 
plices and  wings.  The  devil  also  had  wings,  and  was  played 
in  an  appropriate  mask  and  leather  dress  trimmed  with  feathers 
and  hair.  He  was,  as  the  Prologue  to  the  Chester  Plays  de- 
scribes him,  "the  devil  in  his  feathers  all  ragged  and  rent,"  or, 
as  the  Coventry  account-books  show,  carried  three  pounds  of 
hair  upon  his  hose. 

There  was  probably  no  greater  impulse  for  social  uplift  and 
for  real  education  of  the  masses  than  these  mystery  and  moral- 
ity plays,  in  which  the  people  took  part  themselves  and  in  which, 
as  a  consequence  of  the  presence  of  friends  in  the  various 
roles,  the  spectators  had  a  livelier  interest  than  would  have  been 
otherwise  the  case  under  even  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances, or  with  elaborate  presentation.  In  recent  years  there 
has  come  the  realization  that  the  drama  may  thus  be  made  a 
real  educational  influence.  Unfortunately  at  the  present  time, 
whatever  of  influence  it  has  is  exerted  almost  exclusively  upon 
the  better-to-do  classes,  who  have  so  many  other  opportunities 
for  educational  uplift.  These  plays  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century  brought  the  people  intimately  into  contact  with  the 
great  characters  of  Old  Testament  and  New  Testament  history, 
and  besides  giving  them  precious  religious  information,  which 
of  itself,  however,  might  mean  very  little  for  true  education, 
helped  them  to  an  insight  into  character  and  to  a  right  appre- 
ciation of  human  actions  and  a  sympathy  with  what  was  right 
even  though  it  entailed  suffering,  such  as  could  not  have  other- 
wise been  obtained. 

Of  course  it  is  easy  to  say  that  such  dramas  constantly  re- 
peated, the  subjects  always  the  same  and  only  the  cast  varying 
from  year  to  year,  would  become  intolerably  familiar  and 
might  after  a  time  degenerate  into  the  merely  contemptible. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  they  did  not.  These  old  stories 
of  religious  heroes  were  written  so  close  to  the  heart  of  nature, 
involved  so  intimately  all  the  problems  of  life  that  they  are  of 
undying  interest.  Their  repetition  was  only  from  year  to  year 
and  this  did  not  give  the  opportunity  for  the  familiarity  which 
breeds  contempt.  Besides,  though  the  plays  in  the  various 
cycles  existed  in  definite  forms  there  seems  no  doubt  that  cer- 


250  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tain  changes  were  made  by  the  players  themselves  and  by  the 
managers  of  the  plays  from  time  to  time,  and  indeed  such 
changes  of  the  text  of  a  play  as  we  know  from  present-day  ex- 
perience, are  almost  inevitable. 

It  might  be  urged,  too,  that  the  people  themselves  would 
scarcely  be  possessed  of  the  histrionic  talent  necessary  to  make 
the  plays  effective.  Ordinarily,  however,  as  we  know  from  our 
modern  city  life,  much  less  of  the  actor's  art  is  needed  than  of 
interest  in  the  action,  to  secure  the  attention  of  the  gallery. 
It  must  not  be  assumed  too  readily,  however,  that  the  guilds 
which  were  able  to  supply  men  for  the  great  artistic  decoration 
of  the  cathedrals  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  could  not  supply 
actors  who  would  so  enter  into  the  artistic  expression  of  a  part 
as  to  represent  it  to  the  life.  The  actor  is  more  born  than  made, 
in  spite  of  the  number  of  schools  of  acting  that  are  supposed  to 
be  turning  out  successful  rivals  of  Roscius,  on  recurring  gradu- 
ation days.  It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  only  example  of 
these  mystery  plays  which  is  still  left  to  us  is  the  Passion  Play 
at  Oberammergau,  and  that  is  one  of  the  world's  greatest  spec- 
tacles. On  the  last  occasion  when  it  was  given  about  half  a 
million  of  people  from  all  over  the  world,  many  of  them  even 
from  distant  America  and  Australia,  found  their  way  into  the 
Tyrolese  Mountains  in  order  to  be  present  at  it.  It  is  only  the 
old,  old,  old  story  of  the  Passion  and  death  of  the  Lord.  It  is 
represented  by  villagers  chosen  from  among  the  inhabitants 
of  a  little  village  of  fourteen  hundred  inhabitants,  who  while 
they  have  a  distinct  taste  for  the  artistic  and  produce  some  of 
the  best  wood-carving  done  anywhere  in  Europe,  thus  ap- 
proximating very  interestingly  the  Thirteenth  Century  peoples, 
are  not  particularly  noted  for  their  education,  nor  for  their 
dramatic  ability.  No  one  who  went  up  to  see  the  Passion 
Play  came  away  dissatisfied  either  with  the  interest  of  the 
play  or  with  its  manner  of  representation.  It  is  distinctly  an 
example  of  how  well  men  and  women  do  things  when  they  are 
thoroughly  interested  in  them,  and  when  they  are  under  the 
influence  of  an  old-time  tradition  according  to  which  they  must 
have  the  ability  to  accomplish  what  is  expected  of  them.  Such 
a  tradition  actually  existed  during  the  Thirteenth  and  Four- 
teenth centuries,  leading  to  a  gradual  development  of  dra- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  251 

matic  power  both  in  writers  and  actors,  that  eventually  was 
to  result  in  the  magnificent  outburst  of  dramatic  genius  during 
the  Elizabethan  period.  For  it  must  not  be  forgotten,  that  mys- 
tery and  morality  plays  continued  to  hold  the  stage  down  almost, 
if  not  quite,  to  the  time  of  Shakespeare's  early  manhood,  and 
he  probably  saw  the  Coventry  Cycle  of  plays  acted. 

While  we  have  a  certain  number  of  these  old-time  plays,  most 
of  them,  of  course,  have  disappeared  by  time's  attrition  during 
the  centuries  before  the  invention  of  printing,  when  they  were 
handed  round  only  in  manuscript  form.  Of  some  of  these 
plays  we  shall  have  something  to  say  after  a  moment,  stopping 
only  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  this  literary  mode  of  the 
mystery  and  morality  plays,  dramatic  literature  in  English 
reached  a  height  of  development  which  has  been  equaled  only 
by  our  greatest  dramatic  geniuses. 

Within  the  last  few  years  most  of  the  large  cities  of  the 
English-speaking  world,  besides  the  more  important  univer- 
sities, have  been  given  the  opportunity  to  hear  one  of  the  great 
products  of  this  form  of  literary  activity.  "Everyman"  is  prob- 
ably as  great  a  play  as  there  is  in  English  and  comparable 
with  the  best  work  of  Shakespeare,  Marlowe  and  Jonson.  Its 
author  only  took  the  four  last  things  to  be  remembered — 
Death,  Judgment,  Heaven  and  Hell — the  things  which  must 
come  to  every  man,  and  wrote  his  story  around  them,  yet  he 
did  it  with  such  dramatic  effectiveness  as  to  make  his  drama 
a  triumph  of  literary  execution. 

The  Mystery  Plays  were  as  interesting  in  their  way  to  the 
medieval  generations  as  "Everyman"  to  us.  As  may  be  seen 
from  the  list  quoted  from  Mr.  Morley,  practically  all  the  signifi- 
cant parts  of  the  Bible  story  were  acted  by  these  craftsmen.  Too 
much  can  scarcely  be  said  of  the  educational  value  of  such 
dramatic  exercises ;  the  Bible  itself  with  its  deep  religious  teach- 
ings, with  its  simple  but  sublime  style,  with  its  beautiful  poetry, 
entered  for  a  time  into  the  very  lives  of  these  people.  No  won- 
der that  our  English  speech  during  these  centuries  became  satu- 
rated with  biblical  thoughts  and  words.  Anyone  who  has  ever 
had  any  experience  with  amateur  theatricals  when  a  really 
great  play  was  given,  will  be  able  to  realize  how  much  more 
thoroughly  every  quality,  dramatic,  literary,  poetic,  even  lyric 


252  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

and  historical,  that  there  might  be  in  the  drama,  entered  into 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  those  who  took  part.  It  is  this  feature 
that  is  especially  deserving  of  attention  with  regard  to  these 
mystery  plays  which  began  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  peo- 
ple's interest  in  them,  lifted  them  out  of  themselves  and  their 
trivial  round  of  life  into  the  higher  life  of  this  great  religious 
poetry.  On  the  other  hand  the  teachings  of  the  Bible  came  down 
from  the  distant  plane  on  which  they  might  otherwise  have 
been  set  and  entered  into  the  very  life  of  the  people.  Their 
familiarity  with  scripture  made  it  a  something  not  to  be  dis- 
cussed merely,  but  to  be  applied  in  their  everyday  affairs. 

Besides  this,  the  organization  of  the  company  to  give  the 
play  and  the  necessity  for  the  display  and  exercise  of  taste  in 
the  costumes  and  of  ingenuity  in  the  stage  settings,  were  of 
themselves  of  great  educative  value.  The  rivalry  that  natur- 
ally existed  between  the  various  companies  chosen  from  the 
different  guilds  only  added  to  the  zest  with  which  rehearsals 
were  taken  up,  and  made  the  play  more  fully  occupy  the  minds 
of  those  actively  engaged  in  its  preparation.  For  several  dull 
winter  months  before  Easter  time  there  was  an  intense  preoc- 
cupation of  mind  with  great  thoughts  and  beautiful  words,  in- 
stead of  with  the  paltry  round  of  daily  duties,  which  would 
otherwise  form  the  burden  of  conversation.  Gossip  and  scandal 
mongering  had  fewer  opportunities  since  people's  minds  were 
taken  up  by  so  much  worthier  affairs.  The  towns  in  which 
the  plays  were  given  never  had  more  than  a  few  thousand  in- 
habitants and  most  of  them  must  have  been  personally  inter- 
ested in  some  way  in  the  play.  The  Jesuits,  whose  acumen 
for  managing  students  is  proverbial,  have  always  considered 
it  of  great  importance  to  have  their  students  prepare  plays  sev- 
eral times  a  year.  Their  reason  is  the  occupation  of  mind 
which  it  affords  as  well  as  the  intellectual  and  elocutionary 
training  that  comes  with  the  work.  What  they  do  with  pre- 
meditation, the  old  guilds  did  unconsciously  but  even  more  ef- 
fectively, and  their  success  must  be  considered  as  one  of  the 
social  triumphs  of  this  wonderful  Thirteenth  Century. 

Only  in  recent  years  has  the  idea  succeeded  in  making  way 
in  government  circles  on  the  continent,  that  the  giving  of  free 
dramatic  entertainments  for  the  poor  would  form  an  excellent 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  DRAMA.  253 

addition  to  other  educational  procedures.  Such  perform- 
ances have  now  been  given  for  nearly  a  score  of  years  in  Ber- 
lin. After  all,  the  subvention  allowed  by  government  to  the 
great  theaters  and  opera  houses  in  Europe  is  part  of  this 
same  policy,  though  unfortunately  they  are  calculated  to  af- 
fect only  the  upper  classes,  who  need  the  help  and  the  stimu- 
lus of  great  dramatic  art  and  great  music  less  than  the  lower 
classes,  who  have  so  little  of  variety  or  of  anything  that  makes 
for  uplift  in  their  lives.  In  the  Thirteenth  Century  this  very 
modern  notion  was  anticipated  in  such  a  way  as  to  benefit  the 
very  poorest  of  the  population,  and  that  not  only  passively,  that 
is  by  the  hearing  of  dramatic  performances,  but  also  actively,  by 
taking  parts  in  them  and  so  having  all  the  details  of  the  action 
and  the  words  impressed  upon  them. 


CAPITAL  (LINCOLN) 


254  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


XVI 

FRANCIS  THE  SAINT— THE  FATHER  OF  THE 
RENAISSANCE. 


The  Renaissance  is  often  thought  of  as  a  movement  which 
originated  about  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth  Century.  Careful 
students  sometimes  trace  its  origin  back  somewhat  further. 
In  recent  years  it  has  come  to  be  realized,  however,  that  the 
great  intellectual  development  which  came  during  the  century 
after  the  fall  of  Constantinople  in  Italy,  and  gradually  spread  to 
all  the  civilized  countries  of  Europe,  had  been  preparing  for  at 
least  two  centuries  and  a  half.  While  the  period  from  the  mid- 
dle of  the  Fifteenth  to  the  end  of  the  Sixteenth  Centuries 
well  deserves  the  name  of  Renaissance,  because  one  of  the  most 
important  fructifying  principles  of  the  movement  was  the  re- 
birth of  Greek  ideas  into  the  modern  world  after  the  dispersion 
of  Greek  scholars  by  the  Turkish  advance  into  the  Byzantine 
Empire,  the  term  'must  not  be  allowed  to  carry  with  it  the  mis- 
taken notion  which  only  too  often  has  been  plausibly  accepted, 
that  there  was  a  new  birth  of  poetic,  literary  and  esthetic 
ideas  at  this  time,  just  as  if  there  had  been  nothing  worth  con- 
sidering in  these  lines  before.  Any  such  notion  as  this  would 
be  the  height  of  absurdity  in  the  light  of  the  history  of  the 
previous  centuries  in  Italy.  It  was  a  cherished  notion  of  the 
people  of  the  Renaissance  themselves  that  they  were  the  first 
to  do  artistic  and  literary  work,  hence  they  invented  the  term 
Gothic,  meaning  thereby  barbarous,  for  the  art  of  the  preced- 
ing time,  but  in  this  they  were  only  exercising  that  amusing 
self-complacency  which  each  generation  deems  its  right.  Suc- 
ceeding generations  adopting  their  depreciative  term  have 
turned  it  into  one  of  glory  so  that  Gothic  art  is  now  in  high- 
est honor. 

Fortunately  in  recent  years  there  has  come,  as  we  have  said, 
a  growing  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  real  beginning  of 
modern  art  lies  much  farther  back  in  history,  and  that  the  real 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  255 

father  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  is  a  man  whom  very  few  peo- 
ple in  the  last  three  centuries  have  appreciated  at  his  true 
worth.  Undoubtedly  the  leader  in  that  great  return  to  nature, 
which  constitutes  the  true  basis  of  modern  poetic  and  artistic 
ideas  of  all  kinds,  was  St.  Francis  of  Assisi.  "The  poor  little 
man  of  God,"  as  in  his  humility  he  loved  to  call  himself,  would 
surely  be  the  last  one  to  suspect  that  he  should  ever  come  to  be 
thought  of  as  the  initiator  of  a  great  movement  in  literature  and 
art.  Such  he  was,  however,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term 
and  because  of  the  modern  appreciation  of  him  in  this  regard, 
publications  concerning  him  have  been  more  frequent  during  the 
last  ten  years  than  with  regard  to  almost  any  other  single  in- 
dividual. We  have  under  our  hand  at  the  present  moment 
what  by  no  means  claims  to  be  a  complete  Bibliography  of  St. 
Francis'  life  and  work,  yet  we  can  count  no  less  than  thirty 
different  works  in  various  languages  (not  reckoning  transla- 
tions separate  from  the  originals)  which  have  issued  from  the 
press  during  the  last  ten  years  alone.  This  gives  some  idea 
of  present  day  interest  in  St.  Francis. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  it  is  only  in  our  time 
that  these  significant  tributes  have  been  paid  him.  Much  of  his 
influence  in  literature  and  art,  as  well  as  in  life,  was  recognized 
by  the  southern  nations  all  during  the  centuries  since  his  death. 
That  it  is  only  during  the  last  century  that  other  nations  have 
come  to  appreciate  him  better,  and  especially  have  realized  his 
literary  significance,  has  been  their  loss  and  that  of  their  litera- 
tures. At  the  beginning  of  the  Nineteenth  Century  Gorres, 
the  German  historian  who  was  so  sympathetic  towards  the 
Middle  Ages,  wrote  of  St.  Francis  as  one  of  the  Troubadours, 
and  even  did  not  hesitate  to  add  that  without  St.  Francis  at 
the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  there  would  have  been 
no  Dante  at  the  end.  Renan,  the  well-known  French  rationalist 
historian  and  literateur,  did  not  hesitate  to  proclaim  St.  Francis 
one  of  the  great  religious  poets  of  all  time  and  his  famous  Can- 
ticle of  the  Sun  as  the  greatest  religious  poem  since  the  Hebrew 
Psalms  were  written.  It  was  from  Renan  that  Matthew  Arnold 
received  his  introduction  to  St.  Francis  as  a  literary  man,  and 
his  own  studies  led  him  to  write  the  famous  passages  in  the 
Essa'ys  in  Criticism,  which  are  usually  so  much  a  sbtfrce  of  s'ur- 


256  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

prise  to  those  who  think  of  Mr.  Arnold  as  the  rationalizing 
critic,  rather  than  the  sympathetic  admirer  of  a  medieval  saint. 

"In  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  when  the  clouds 
and  storms  had  come,  when  the  gay  sensuous  pagan  life  was 
gone,  when  men  were  not  living  by  the  senses  and  understand- 
ing, when  they  were  looking  for  the  speedy  coming  of  Antichrist, 
there  appeared  in  Italy,  to  the  north  of  Rome,  in  the  beautiful 
Umbrian  country  at  the  foot  of  the  Appennines,  a  figure  of  the 
most  magical  power  and  charm,  St.  Francis.  His  century  is, 
I  think,  the  most  interesting  in  the  history  of  Christianity 
after  its  primitive  age ;  more  interesting  than  even  the  century 
of  the  Reformation;  and  one  of  the  chief  figures,  perhaps  the 
very  chief,  to  which  this  interest  attaches  itself,  is  St.  Francis. 
And  why  ?  Because  of  the  profound  popular  instinct  which  en- 
f  abled  him,  more  than  any  man  since  the  primitive  age,  to  fit 
religion  for  popular  use.  He  brought  religion  to  the  people. 
He  founded  the  most  popular  body  of  ministers  of  religion 
that  has  ever  existed  in  the  Church.  He  transformed  mona- 
chism  by  uprooting  the  stationary  monk,  delivering  him  from 
the  bondage  of  property,  and  sending  him,  as  a  mendicant 
friar,  to  be  a  stranger  and  sojourner,  not  in  the  wilderness,  but 
in  the  most  crowded  haunts  of  men,  to  console  them  and  to  do 
them  good.  This  popular  instinct  of  his  is  at  the  bottom  of 
his  famous  marriage  with  poverty.  Poverty  and  suffering  are 
the  condition  of  the  people,  the  multitude,  the  immense  majority 
of  mankind;  and  it  was  towards  this  people  that  his  soul 
yearned.  "He  listens,"  it  was  said  of  him,  "to  those  to  whom 
God  himself  will  not  listen." 

The  more  one  reads  the  English  apostle  of  sweetness  and 
light  on  Francis  the  greater  the  wonder  grows.  With  a  sym- 
pathy quite  unexpected  in  the  man  for  whom  the  Diety  had  be- 
come merely  "a  stream  of  tendency  that  makes  for  righteous- 
ness," he  realized  the  influence  that  this  supreme  lover  of  a  per- 
sonal God  had  over  his  generation,  and  his  brother  poet  soul 
flew  to  its  affinity  in  spite  of  the  apparently  insurmountable  ob- 
stacle of  extreme  aloofness  of  spiritual  temperament. 

Matthew  Arnold  proceeds : 

"So  in  return,  as  no  other  man,  St.  Francis  was  listened  to. 
When  an  Umbrian  town  or  village  heard  of  his  approach,  the 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  257 

whole  population  went  out  in  joyful  procession  to  meet  him, 
with  green  boughs,  flags,  music,  and  songs  of  gladness.  The 
master,  who  began  with  two  disciples,  could  in  his  own  lifetime 
(and  he  died  at  forty-five)  collect  to  keep  Whitsuntide  with 
him,  in  presence  of  an  immense  multitude,  five  thousand  of 
his  Minorites.  He  found  fulfilment  to  his  prophetic  cry:  "I 
hear  in  my  ears  the  sound  of  the  tongues  of  all  the  nations 
who  shall  come  unto  us;  Frenchmen,  Spaniards,  Germans, 
Englishmen.  The  Lord  will  make  of  us  a  great  people,  even 
unto  the  ends  of  the  earth." 

When  we  reach  the  next  paragraph  the  secret  of  this  sur- 
prising paradoxical  sympathy  is  out.  It  is  the  literary  and  es- 
thetic side  of  St.  Francis  that  has  appealed  to  him,  and  like 
Renan  he  does  not  hesitate  to  give  "the  poor  little  man  of  God" 
a  place  among  the  great  original  geniuses  of  all  time,  associa- 
ting his  name  with  that  of  Dante. 

"Prose  could  not  satisfy  this  ardent  soul,  and  he  made  po^ 
etry.  Latin  was  too  learned  for  this  simple,  popular  nature, 
and  he  composed  in  his  mother  tongue,  in  Italian.  The  be- 
ginnings of  the  mundane  poetry  of  the  Italians  are  in  Sicily, 
at  the  court  of  kings ;  the  beginnings  of  their  religious  poetry 
are  in  Umbria,  with  St.  Francis.  His  are  the  humble  upper 
waters  of  a  mighty  stream :  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  it  is  St.  Francis,  at  the  end,  Dante.  Now  it  happens 
that  St.  Francis,  too,  like  the  Alexandrian  songstress,  has  his 
hymn  for  the  sun,  for  Adonis;  Canticle  of  the  Sun,  Canticle 
of  the  Creatures,  the  poem  goes  by  both  names.  Like  the 
Alexandrian  hymn,  it  is  designed  for  popular  use,  but  not  for 
use  by  King  Ptolemy's  people;  artless  in  language,  irregular 
in  rhythm,  it  matches  with  the  childlike  genius  that  produced 
it,  and  the  simple  natures  that  loved  and  repeated  it." 

Probably  the  most  satisfactory  translation  for  those  who 
may  not  be  able  to  appreciate  the  original  of  this  sublime  hymn 
that  has  evoked  so  many  tributes,  is  the  following 
literal  rendering  into  English  in  which  a  quite  successful  at- 
tempt to  give  the  naif  rhythm  of  the  original  Italian,  which 
necessarily  disappears  in  any  formal  rhymed  translation,  has 
been  made  by  Father  Paschal  Robinson  of  the  Order  of  St. 
Francis  for  his  recent  edition  of  the  writings  of  St.  Francis.* 
*  Philadelphia,  The  Dolphin  Press,  1906. 


2  58  ORE  A  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

"Here  begin  the  praises  of  the  Creatures  which  the  Blessed 
Francis  made  to  the  praise  and  honor  of  God  while  he  was  ill 
at  St.  Damian's: 

Most  high,  omnipotent,  good  Lord, 

Praise,  glory  and  honor  and  benediction  all,  are  Thine. 

To  Thee  alone  do  they  belong,  most  High, 

And  there  is  no  man  fit  to  mention  Thee. 

Praise  be  to  Thee,  my  Lord,  with  all  Thy  creatures, 

Especially  to  my  worshipful  brother  sun, 

The  which  lights  up  the  day,  and  through  him  dost 
Thou  brightness  give ; 

And  beautiful  is  he  and  radiant  with  splendor  great; 

Of  Thee,  Most  High,  signification  gives. 
;  Praised  be  my  Lord,  for  sister  moon  and  for  the  stars, 

In  heaven  Thou  hast  formed  them  clear  and  precious 
and  fair. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  brother  wind 

And  for  the  air  and  clouds  and  fair  and  every  kind 
of  weather, 

By  the  which  Thou  givest  to  Thy  creatures  nourish- 
ment. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  sister  water, 

The  which  is  greatly  helpful  and  humble  and  precious 
and  pure. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  brother  fire, 

By  the  which  Thou  lightest  up  the  dark. 

And  fair  is  he  and  gay  and  mighty  and  strong. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister,  mother  earth, 

The  which  sustains  and  keeps  us 

And  brings  forth  diverse  fruits  with  grass  and  flowers 
bright. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  those  who  for  Thy  love  for- 
give 

And  weakness  bear  and  tribulation. 

Blessed  those  who  shall  in  peace  endure, 

For  by  Thee,  Most  High,  shall  they  be  crowned. 

Praised  be  my  Lord  for  our  sister,  the  bodily  death, 

From  the  which  no  living  man  can  flee. 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  259 

Woe  to  them  who  die  in  mortal  sin ; 

Blessed  those  who  shall  find  themselves  in  Thy  most 

holy  will, 

For  the  second  death  shall  do  them  no  ill. 
Praise  ye  and  bless  ye  my  Lord,  and  give  Him  thanks, 
And  be  subject  unto  Him  with  great  humility." 

Except  for  his  place  in  literature  and  art,  the  lives  of  few 
men  would  seem  to  be  of  so  little  interest  to  the  modern  time 
as  that  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  yet  it  is  for  the  man  him- 
self that  so  many  now  turn  to  him.  His  spirit  is  entirely  op- 
posed to  the  sordid  principles  that  have  been  accepted  as  the 
basis  of  success  in  modern  life.  His  idea  was  that  happiness 
consisted  in  being  free  from  unsatisfied  desires  rather  than 
seeking  to  secure  the  satisfaction  of  his  wishes.  Duty  was  self- 
denial,  not  self-seeking  under  any  pretext.  He  stripped  him- 
self literally  of  everything  and  his  mystic  marriage  to  the  Lady 
Poverty  was,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned,  as  absolute  a  reality, 
as  if  the  union  had  been  ictual  instead  of  imaginary.  The 
commonplace  details  of  his  early  years  seem  all  the  more  inter- 
esting from  these  later  developments,  and  have  been  the  sub- 
ject of  much  sympathetic  study  in  recent  years. 

St.  Francis'  father  was  a  cloth  merchant  and  St.  Francis 
had  been  brought  up  and  educated  as  became  the  son  of  a  man 
whose  commercial  journeys  often  took  him  to  France.  It  was 
indeed  while  his  father  was  absent  on  one  of  these  business 
expeditions  that  Francis  was  born  and  on  his  father's  return 
received  from  him  the  name  of  Francisco — the  Frenchman — 
in  joyful  commemoration  of  his  birth. 

As  he  grew  up  he  did  not  differ  from  the  ordinary  young 
man  of  his  time,  but  seems  to  have  taken  the  world  and  its 
pleasures  quite  as  he  found  them  and  after  the  fashion  of  those 
around  him.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  fell  seriously  ill  and 
then,  for  the  first  time,  there  came  to  him  the  realization  of 
the  true  significance  of  life.  As  Dean  Stanley  said  shortly  be- 
fore his  death,  "life  seemed  different  when  viewed  from  the 
horizontal  position."  Life  lived  for  its  own  sake  was  not 
worth  while.  To  Francis  there  came  the  realization  that  when 
God  Himself  became  man  he  lived  his  life  for  others.  Francis 


260  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

set  about  literally  imitating  him.  Enthusiastic  students  of  his 
life  consider  him  the  great  type  of  genuine  Christian,  the  most 
real  disciple  of  Christ  who  ever  lived.  Some  money  and  goods 
that  came  into  his  hands  having  been  disposed  of  for  the  poor, 
Francis'  father  made  serious  objection  and  Francis  was 
brought  before  the  ecclesiastical  authorities.  It  was  at  this 
moment  that  he  stripped  himself  of  everything  that  he  had, 
the  Bishop  even  having  to  provide  a  cloak  to  cover  his  naked- 
ness, and  became  the  wonderful  apostle  to  the  poor  that  he 
remained  during  all  the  rest  of  his  life.  Curious  as  it  must 
ever  seem,  it  was  not  long  before  he  had  many  who  wished  to 
imitate  him  and  who  insisted  on  becoming  his  disciples  and 
followers.  St.  Francis  had  had  no  idea  how  infectious  his  ex- 
ample was  to  prove.  Before  his  death  his  disciples  could  be 
numbered  by  the  thousands  and  the  great  order  of  the  Fran- 
ciscans, that  for  centuries  was  to  do  so  much  work,  had  come 
into  existence  not  by  any  conscious  planning,  but  by  the  mere 
force  of  the  great  Christian  principles  that  were  the  guiding 
factors  in  St.  Francis*  own  life. 

Ruskin  in  his  Mornings  in  Florence  in  discussing  Giotto's 
famous  picture  of  St.  Francis*  renunciation  of  his  inheritance, 
and  his  incurrence  thereby  of  his  father's  anger,  has  a  charac- 
teristic passage  that  sounds  the  very  keynote  of  the  Saint's 
life  and  goes  to  the  heart  of  things.  In  it  he  explains  the  mean- 
ing of  this  apparently  contradictory  incident  in  St.  Francis' 
life,  since  Francis'  great  virtue  was  obedience,  yet  here,  ap- 
parently as  a  beginning  of  his  more  perfect  Christian  life,  is  an 
act  of  disobedience.  After  Ruskin's  explanation,  however, 
it  is  all  the  more  difficult  to  understand  the  present  genera- 
tion's revival  of  interest  in  Francis  unless  it  be  attributed  to  a 
liking  for  contrast. 

"That  is  the  meaning  of  St.  Francis'  renouncing  his  inheri- 
tance ;  and  it  is  the  beginning  of  Giotto's  gospel  of  Works.  Un- 
less this  hardest  of  deeds  be  done  first — this  inheritance  of 
mammon  and  the  world  cast  away, — all  other  deeds  are  useless. 
You  cannot  serve,  cannot  obey,  God  and  mammon.  No  chari- 
ties, no  obedience,  no  self-denials,  are  of  any  use  while  you  are 
still  at  heart  in  conformity  with  the  world.  You  go  to  church, 
because  the  world  goss.  You  keep  Sunday,  because  your  neigh- 


ST.  FRANCIS  (CHURCH  OF  THE  FRARI,  VENICE,   NIC.   PISANO) 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  261 

bor  keeps  it.  But  you  dress  ridiculously  because  your  neigh- 
bors ask  it;  and  you  dare  not  do  a  rough  piece  of  work,  be- 
cause your  neighbors  despise  it.  You  must  renounce  your 
neighbor,  in  his  riches  and  pride,  and  remember  him  in  his 
distress.  That  is  St.  Francis'  'disobedience/  " 

In  spite  of  Ruskin's  charming  explanation  of  St.  Francis' 
place  in  history,  and  his  elucidation  of  the  hard  passages  in  his 
life,  most  people  will  only  find  it  more  difficult,  after  these  ex- 
planations, to  understand  the  modern  acute  reawakening  of 
interest  in  St.  Francis.  Our  generation  in  its  ardent  devotion 
to  the  things  of  this  world  does  not  seem  a  promising  field  for 
the  evangel,  "Give  up  all  thou  hast  and  follow  me."  The 
mystery  of  St.  Francis'  attraction  only  deepens  the  more  we 
know  of  him.  An  American  Franciscan  has  tried  to  solve  the 
problem  and  his  words  are  worth  quoting.  Father  Paschal  Rob- 
inson, O.  S.  M.,  in  his  "The  True  St.  Francis"  says : — 

"What  is  the  cause  of  the  present  widespread  homage  to  St. 
Francis  ?  It  is,  of  course,  far  too  wide  a  question  to  allow  the 
present  writer  to  do  more  than  make  a  few  suggestions.  First 
and  foremost,  we  must  ever  reckon  with  the  perennial  charm 
of  the  Saint's  personality,  which  seems  to  wield  an  ineffable 
influence  over  the  hearts  of  men — drawing  and  holding  those 
of  the  most  different  habits  of  mind,  with  a  sense  of  personal 
sympathy.  Perhaps  no  other  man,  unless  it  be  St.  Paul,  ever 
had  such  wide  reaching,  all-embracing  sympathy:  and  it  may 
have  been  wider  than  St.  Paul's,  for  we  find  no  evidence  in  the 
great  apostle  of  a  love  for  nature  and  of  animals.  This  exquis- 
ite Franciscan  spirit,  as  it  is  called,  which  is  the  very  perfume 
of  religion — this  spirit  at  once  so  humble,  so  tender,  so  devout, 
so  akin  to  'the  good  odor  of  Christ' — passed  out  into  the  whole 
world  and  has  become  a  permanent  source  of  inspiration.  A 
character  at  once  so  exhalted  and  so  purified  as  St.  Francis  was 
sure  to  keep  alive  an  ideal;  and  so  he  does.  From  this  one 
can  easily  understand  St.  Francis'  dominance  among  a  small 
but  earnest  band  of  enthusiasts  now  pointing  the  world  back  to 
the  reign  of  the  spirit.  It  was  this  same  gentle  idealism  of  St. 
Francis  which  inspired  the  art  of  the  Umbrian  people ;  it  was 
this  which  was  translated  into  the  paintings  of  the  greatest 
artists.  No  school  of  painting  has  ever  been  penetrated  with 


262  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

such  pure  idealism  as  the  Umbrian ;  and  this  inspiration,  at  once 
religious  and  artistic,  came  from  the  tomb  of  the  poverello 
above  which  Giotto  had  painted  his  mystical  frescoes.  The 
earnest  quasi-religious  study  of  the  medieval  beginnings  of 
western  art  has  therefore  rightly  been  set  down  as  another 
cause  for  some  of  the  latter-day  pilgrimages  to  Assisi.  In  like 
manner,  the  scientific  treatment  of  the  Romance  literature  leads 
naturally  to  St.  Francis  as  to  the  humble  upper  waters  of  a 
mighty  stream ;  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  is 
St.  Francis,  at  the  end  is  Dante.  It  was  Matthew  Arnold,  we 
believe,  who  first  held  up  the  poor  man  of  Assisi  as  a  literary 
type — a  type  as  distinct  and  formal  as  the  author  of  the  Divine 
Comedy.  'Prose/  he  says,  'could  not  easily  satisfy  the  saint's 
ardent  soul,  and  so  he  made  poetry/  'It  was/  writes  Ozanam, 
'the  first  cry  of  a  nascent  poetry  which  has  grown  and  made 
itself  heard  through  the  world/  ' 

Considering  how  thoroughly  impractical  Francis  seemed  to 
be  in  his  life,  it  can  scarcely  help  but  be  a  source  of  ever  in- 
creasing wonder  that  he  succeeded  in  influencing  his  genera- 
tion so  widely  and  so  thoroughly.  It  is  evident  that  there  were 
many  men  of  the  time  tired  of  the  more  or  less  strenuous  life, 
which  chained  them  either  to  the  cares  of  business  or  tempted 
them  for  the  sake  of  the  bubble  reputation  into  a  military  career. 
To  these  St.  Francis'  method  of  life  came  with  an  especially 
strong  appeal.  The  example  of  his  neglect  of  worldly  things 
and  of  his  so  thoroughly  maintained  resolve  not  to  be  harassed 
by  the  ordinary  cares  of  life,  and  especially  not  to  take  too 
much  thought  of  the  future,  penetrated  into  all  classes.  While 
it  made  the  rich  realize  how  much  of  their  lives  they  were  liv- 
ing merely  for  the  sake  of  others,  it  helped  the  poor  to  be  sat- 
isfied, since  here  was  a  sublime  and  complete  recognition  of  the 
fact  that  an  existence  without  cares  was  better  than  one  with 
many  cares,  such  as  were  sure  to  come  to  those  who  wrought 
ever  and  anon  increase  of  the  goods  of  this  world.  Such  ideas 
may  seen  to  be  essentially  modern,  but  anyone  who  will  turn  to 
the  chapter  on  The  Three  Most  Read  Books  of  the  Cen- 
tury and  read  the  passages  from  the  "Romance  of  the  Rose" 
on  wealth  and  poverty,  will  know  better  than  to  think  them 
anything  but  perennial. 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  263 

Men  gathered  around  St.  Francis  then  and  pleaded  to  be 
allowed  to  follow  his  mode  of  life.  Some  of  the  men  who 
thus  came  to  him  were  the  choice  spirits  of  the  times.  Thomas 
of  Celano,  who  was  to  be  one  of  the  Master's  favorite  disciples 
and  subsequently  to  be  his  most  authoritative  biographer,  was 
one  of  the  great  literary  geniuses  of  all  times,  the  author  of  the 
sublime  Dies  Irae.  While  most  of  his  first  companions  were 
men  of  such  extreme  simplicity  of  mind  that  the  world  has 
been  rather  in  an  amused  than  admiring  attitude  with  regard  to 
them,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  simplicity  was  of  itself 
an  index  not  only  of  their  genuine  sincerity  of  heart,  but  of  a 
greatness  of  mind  that  set  them  above  the  ordinary  run  of 
mankind  and  made  them  live  poetry  when  they  did  not  write 
it.  The  institute  established  by  St.  Francis  was  destined,  in 
the  course  of  the  century,  to  attract  to  it  some  of  the  great  men 
of  every  country.  Besides  Thomas  of  Celano  there  was,  in 
Italy,  Anthony  of  Padua,  almost  as  famous  as  his  master  for 
the  beauty  of  his  saintly  life;  Jacopone  Da  Todi,  the  well- 
known  author  of  the  Stabat  Mater,  a  hymn  that  rivals  in  poetic 
genius,  the  Dies  Irae;  Bonaventure,  the  great  teacher  of 
philosophy  and  theology  at  the  University  of  Paris,  and  the 
writer  of  some  of  the  sublimest  treatises  of  mystical  theology 
that  were  to  be  text  books  for  the  members  of  the  Franciscan 
order,  and  of  many  other  religious  bodies  for  centuries  after  his 
death,  indeed  down  to  even  our  own  times.  There  was  Roger 
Bacon,  in  England,  the  famous  teacher  of  science  at  Paris 
and  at  Oxford;  and  that  Subtle  Doctor,  Duns  Scotus,  whose 
influence  in  philosophical  speculation  was  destined  never  quite 
to  disappear,  and  many  others,  the  pick  of  the  generations  in 
which  they  lived,  all  proud  to  look  up  to  Francis  of  Assisi  as 
their  father;  all  glad  of  the  opportunity  that  the  order  gave 
them,  to  pass  their  lives  in  peace,  far  from  the  madding  crowd 
with  its  strifes  and  competition,  providing  them  constantly 
with  opportunities  to  live  their  own  lives,  to  find  their  own 
souls,  to  cultivate  their  own  individualities  untrammelled  by 
worldly  cares. 

Francis'  success  in  this  matter  and  the  propaganda  of  his  in- 
fluence will  not  be  so  surprising  to  Americans  of  this  genera- 
tion, if  they  will  only  recall  what  is  still  a  precious  memory  in 


264  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  minds  of  men  who  are  yet  alive,  that  efforts  to  found  a 
community  not  unlike  that  of  the  Franciscans  in  certain  ways, 
attracted  widespread  attention  even  in  our  own  country  half 
a  century  ago.  After  all,  the  men  who  gathered  at  Brook 
Farm  had  ideas  and  ideals  not  so  distant  from  those  cherished 
by  St.  Francis  and  the  early  members  of  the  Franciscan  Order. 
Their  main  effort  was  also  to  get  away  from  worldly  cares  and 
have  the  opportunity  to  work  out  their  philosophy  of  life  far 
from  the  disturbing  influence  of  city  life,  in  the  peaceful  pur- 
suit of  only  such  agricultural  efforts  as  might  be  necessary  to 
ensure  them  simple  sustenance,  yet  at  the  same  time  enforce 
from  them  such  exercise  in  the  open  air  as  would  guarantee 
the  preservation  of  health.  The  men  of  Brook  Farm  were, 
in  the  eyes  of  their  generation,  quite  as  far  from  practical 
ideas  as  were  the  early  Franciscans.  It  must  not  be  forgotten, 
however,  that  these  men  who  thus  attempted  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  what  St.  Francis  succeeded  in  accomplishing  in  the 
Thirteenth,  in  their  subsequent  careers  succeeded  in  impressing 
themselves  very  strongly  upon  the  life  of  the  American  people. 
Much  of  what  is  best  in  our  Nineteenth  Century  life  would  be 
lost  if  the  Brook  farmers  and  what  they  accomplished  were  to 
be  removed  from  it.  Men  of  ideals  are  usually  also  men  of 
working  ideas,  as  these  two  experiences  in  history  would  seem 
to  show. 

It  was  not  alone  for  the  men  of  his  generation,  however, 
that  Francis  was  destined  to  furnish  a  refuge  from  worldly 
care  and  a  place  of  peace  and  thoughtful  life.  We  have 
already  said  that  it  was  by  chance,  certainly  without  any  con- 
scious intention  on  Francis'  part  that  the  Franciscan  order 
for  men  which  is  usually  spoken  of  as  the  First  Order  came  into 
existence.  The  last  thing  in  the  world  very  probably  that 
would  ever  have  entered  into  the  mind  of  Francis  when  he 
began  to  lead  the  simple  life  of  a  poor  little  man  of  God,  was 
the  founding  of  a  religious  order  for  women.  We  tell  else- 
where the  story,  of  St.  Clare's  interest  in  St.  Francis'  mode  of 
life  and  of  the  trials  that  she  underwent  in  order  to  obtain 
permission  and  opportunity  to  fashion  her  own  life  in  the 
same  way.  The  problem  was  even  more  serious  for  women 
than  for  men.  St.  Francis  considered  that  they  should  not  be 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  265 

allowed  to  follow  the  Franciscan  custom  of  going  out  to  seek 
alms  and  yet  required  that  they  should  live  in  absolute  poverty, 
possessing  nothing  and  supporting  themselves  only  by  the 
contributions  of  the  faithful  and  the  work  of  their  hands.  St. 
Clare  attempted  the  apparently  impossible  and  solved  the  prob- 
lem of  a  new  career  for  the  women  of  her  time. 

It  was  not  very  long  before  St.  Clare's  example  proved  as 
infective  as  that  of  St.  Francis  himself.  While  in  the  begin- 
ning the  members  of  her  family  had  been  the  most  strenuous 
objectors  against  her  taking  up  such  an  unwonted  mode  of 
existence  it  was  not  long  before  she  was  joined  in  the  monas- 
tery of  St.  Damian  where  her  little  community  was  living,  by 
her  sister  who  was  to  become  almost  as  famous  as  herself  under 
the  name  of  St.  Agnes,  and  by  her  mother  and  other  near  rela- 
tives, from  Assisi  and  the  neighborhood.  This  Second  Order 
of  St.  Francis  to  which  only  women  were  admitted  proved  to 
have  in  it  the  germ  of  as  active  life  as  that  of  the  first  order. 
Before  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  there  were  women 
Franciscans  in  every  country  in  Europe.  These  convents  fur- 
nished for  women  a  refuge  from  the  worried,  hurried,  over- 
busy  life  around  them  that  proved  quite  as  attractive  as  the 
similar  opportunity  for  the  men.  For  many  hundreds  of 
years  down  even  to  our  own  time,  women  were  to  find  in  the 
quiet  obscurity  of  such  Franciscan  convents  a  peaceful,  happy 
life  in  which  they  occupied  themselves  with  simple  conven- 
tual duties,  with  manual  labor  in  their  monastery  gardens, 
with  the  making  of  needle  work  in  which  they  became  the 
most  expert  in  the  world,  with  the  illuminating  of  missals  and 
office  books  of  such  artistic  beauty  that  they  have  become  the 
most  precious  treasures  of  our  great  libraries,  and  with  the 
long  hours  of  prayer  by  which  they  hoped  to  accomplish  as 
much  in  making  the  world  better  as  if  they  devoted  themselves 
to  ardent  efforts  of  reform  which,  of  course,  the  circumstances 
of  the  time  would  not  have  permitted. 

Finally  there  was  the  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis,  which  was 
to  gather  to  itself  so  many  of  the  distinguished  people  of  the 
century  whose  occupations  and  obligations  would  not  permit 
them  to  live  the  conventual  life,  but  who  yet  felt  that  they  must 
be  attached  by  some  bond  to  this  beautiful  sanctity  that  was 


266  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

entering  into  all  the  better  life  of  the  century.  The  Third 
Order  was  established  so  as  to  permit  all  the  world  to  become 
Franciscans  to  whatever  degree  it  considered  possible,  and  to 
share  in  the  sublime  Christianity  of  the  founder  whom  they 
all  admired  so  much,  even  if  they  were  not  able  to  imitate  his 
sublimer  virtues.  Into  this  Third  Order  of  St.  Francis  most 
of  the  finer  spirits  of  the  time  entered  with  enthusiasm.  We 
need  only  recall  that  Louis  IX.  of  France,  the  greatest  Mon- 
arch of  the  century,  considered  it  a  special  privilege  to  be  a 
follower  of  the  humble  Francis,  and  that  St.  Elizabeth  of 
Hungary,  the  daughter  of  a  king,  the  wife  and  mother  of  a 
ruling  prince,  gave  another  example  of  the  far-reachingness 
of  Francis'  work.  Dante  was  another  of  the  great  members 

'  of  the  Third  Order  and  was  buried  in  the  habit  of  St.  Francis, 
glorying  in  the  thought  of  the  brotherhood  this  gave  him  with 
the  saint  he  loved  so  much. 

All  down  the  centuries  since,  other  distinguished  men  in 
many  countries  of  Europe  were  proud  to  claim  the  same  dis- 
tinction. Modern  science  is  supposed  to  be  unorthodox  in  its 
tendencies  and  electricity  is  the  most  recent  of  the  sciences 
in  development.  Three  of  the  great  founders  in  electricity, 

/  Volta,  Galvani  and  Ampere,  were  members  of  the  Third  Order 
of  St.  Francis  and  at  least  one  of  them,  Galvani,  insisted  on 
being  buried  in  the  habit  of  the  order  six  centuries  after  the 
death  of  his  father  Francis  in  order  to  show  how  much  he 
appreciated  the  privilege.  There  is  no  man  who  lived  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  who  influenced  the  better  side  of  men 
more  in  all  the  succeeding  ages  down  to  and  including  our 
own  time,  than  the  poor  little  man  of  God  of  Assisi.  He  is 
just  coming  into  a  further  precious  heritage  of  uplift  for  the 
men  of  our  time,  that  is  surprising  for  those  who  are  so  buried 
in  the  merely  material  that  they  fail  to  realize  how  much  the 
ideal  still  rules  the  minds  of  thinking  men,  but  that  seems  only 
natural  and  inevitable  to  those  who  appreciate  all  the  attrac- 
tiveness there  is  in  a  simple  life  lived  without  the  bootless  hurry, 
the  unattaining  bustle  and  the  over-strained  excitement  of  the 
strenuous  existence. 

What  St.  Francis  and  his  order  accomplished  in  Italy  an- 
other great  Saint,  Dominic,  was  achieving  in  the  West.  The 


PRANCIS  THE  SAINT.  267 

fact  that  another  order  similar  to  that  of  St.  Francis  in  many 
respects,  yet  differing  from  it  in  a  number  of  essential  particu- 
lars, should  have  arisen  almost  at  the  same  time  shows  how 
profoundly  the  spirit  of  organization  of  effort  had  penetrated 
into  the  minds  of  these  generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
While  poverty  was  to  be  the  badge  of  St.  Dominic's  followers 
as  well  as  those  of  St.  Francis,  learning  was  to  replace  the 
simplicity  which  St.  Francis  desired  for  his  sons.    The  order 
of  preachers  began  at  once  to  give  many  eminent  scholars  to 
the  Church,  and  for  three  centuries  there  was  not  a  single  gen- 
eration that  did  not  see  as  Dominicans  some  of  the  most  intel- 
lectual men  of  Europe.     Leaders  they  were  in  philosophy,  in 
the  development  of  thought,  in  education,  and  in  every  phase 
of  ecclesiastical  life.    The  watch  dogs  of  the  Lord,  (Domini 
Canes)  they  were  called,  punning  on  their  name  because  every- 
where they  were  in  the  van  of  defense  against  the  enemies  of 
Christianity.    That  the  Thirteenth  Century  should  have  given 
rise  to  two  such  great  religious  orders  stamps  it  as  a  wonder- 
fully fruitful  period  for  religion  as  well  as  for  every  other 
phrase  of  human  development. 

In  order  to  understand  what  these  great  founders  tried  to 
do,  the  work  of  these  two  orders  must  be  considered  together. 
They  have  never  ceased,  during  all  the  intervening  seven  cen- 
turies, to  be  the  source  of  great  influence  in  the  religious  world. 
They  have  proven  refuges  for  many  gentle  spirits  at  all  times 
and  have  been  the  homes  of  learning,  as  well  as  of  piety. 
While  occasionally  their  privileges  have  been  abused,  and  men 
have  taken  advantage  of  the  opportunities  to  be  idle  and  luxu- 
rious, this  has  happened  much  seldomer  than  the  world  imag- 
ines. Not  a  single  century  has  failed  to  show  men  among 
them  whom  the  world  honors  as  Saints,  and  whose  lives  have 
been  examples  of  what  can  be  accomplished  by  human  nature 
at  its  best.  They  have  been  literally  schools  of  unselfishness, 
and  men  have  learned  to  think  less  of  themselves  and  more  of 
their  labor  by  the  contemplation  of  the  lives  of  these  begging 
friars.  What  they  "did  for  England,  the  Rev.  Augustus  Jes- 
sop,  a  non-conformist  clergyman  in  England,  has  recently 
told  very  well,  and  the  more  one  studies  their  history,  the 
higher  the  estimation  of  them;  and  the  more  one  knows  of 


268  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

them,  the  less  does  one  talk  of  their  vices.  Green  in  his  "His- 
tory of  the  English  People"  has  paid  them  a  tribute  that  it  is 
well  to  remember : — 

"To  bring  the  world  back  again  within  the  pale  of  the 
Church  was  the  aim  of  two  religious  orders  which  sprang 
suddenly  to  life  at  the  opening  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The 
zeal  of  the  Spaniard  Dominic  was  aroused  at  the  sight  of  the 
lordly  prelates  who  sought  by  fire  and  sword  to  win  the  Al- 
bigensian  heretics  to  the  faith.  'Zeal/  he  cried,  'must  be  met 
by  zeal,  lowliness  by  lowliness,  false  sanctity  by  real  sanctity, 
preaching  lies  by  preaching  truth.'  His  fiery  ardor  and  rigid 
orthodoxy  were  seconded  by  the  mystical  piety,  the  imagina- 
ative  enthusiasm  of  Francis  of  Assisi.  The  life  of  Francis 
falls  like  a  stream  of  tender  light  across  the  darkness  of  the 
time.  In  the  frescoes  of  Giotto  or  the  verse  of  Dante  we  see 
him  take  Poverty  for  his  bride.  He  strips  himself  of  all:  he 
flings  his  very  clothes  at  his  father's  feet,  that  he  may  be  one 
with  Nature  and  God.  His  passionate  verse  claims  the  moon 
for  his  sister  and  the  sun  for  his  brother ;  he  calls  on  his  brother 
the  Wind,  and  his  sister  the  Water.  His  last  faint  cry  was  a 
'Welcome,  Sister  Death.'  Strangely  as  the  two  men  differed 
from  each  other,  their  aim  was  the  same,  to  convert  the  heathen, 
to  extirpate  heresy,  to  reconcile  knowledge  with  orthodoxy,  to 
carry  the  Gospel  to  the  poor.  The  work  was  to  be  done  by  the 
entire  reversal  of  the  older  monasticism,  by  seeking  personal 
salvation  in  effort  for  the  salvation  of  their  fellow-men,  by 
exchanging  the  solitary  of  the  cloister  for  the  preacher,  the 
monk  for  a  friar.  To  force  the  new  'brethren'  into  entire  de- 
pendence on  those  among  whom  they  labored  the  vow  of  Pov- 
erty was  turned  into  a  stern  reality ;  the  'Begging  Friars'  were 
to  subsist  on  the  alms  of  the  poor,  they  might  possess  neither 
money  nor  lands,  the  very  houses  in  which  they  lived  were  to 
be  held  in  trust  for  them  by  others.  The  tide  of  popular  en- 
thusiasm which  welcomed  their  appearance  swept  before  it  the 
reluctance  of  Rome,  the  jealousy  of  the  older  orders,  the  oppo- 
sition of  the  parochial  priesthood.  Thousands  of  brethren  gath- 
ered in  a  few  years  around  Francis  and  Dominic,  and  the  beg- 
ging preachers,  clad  in  their  coarse  frock  of  serge,  with  the 
girdle  of  rope  around  their  waist,  wandered  barefooted  as  mis- 


FRANCIS  THE  SAINT. 


269 


sionaries  over  Asia,  battled  with  heresy  in  Italy  and  Gaul,  lec- 
tured in  the  Universities,  and  preached  and  toiled  among  the 
poor." 


SIDE  CAPITAL  (LINCOLN) 


270  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XVII 
AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR. 


No  one  of  all  the  sons  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  not  even 
Dante  himself,  so  typifies  the  greatness  of  the  mentality  of 
the  period  as  does  Thomas,  called  from  his  birthplace  Aqui- 
nas, or  of  Aquin,  on  whom  his  own  and  immediately  succeed- 
ing generations  because  of  what  they  considered  his  almost 
more  than  human  intellectual  acumen,  bestowed  the  title  of 
Angelical  Doctor,  while  the  Church  for  the  supremely  unsel- 
fish character  of  his  life,  formally  conferred  the  title  of  Saint. 
The  life  of  Aquinas  is  of  special  interest,  because  it  serves  to 
clarify  many  questions  as  to  the  education  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  and  to  correct  many  false  impressions  that  are  only 
too  prevalent  with  regard  to  the  intellectual  life  of  the  period. 
Though  Aquinas  came  of  a  noble  family  which  was  related 
to  many  of  the  Royal  houses  of  Europe  and  was  the  son  of 
the  Count  of  Aquino,  then  one  of  the  most  important  of  the 
non-reigning  noble  houses  of  Italy,  his  education  was  begun 
in  his  early  years  and  was  continued  in  the  midst  of  such 
opportunities  as  even  the  modern  student  might  well  envy. 

It  is  often  said  that  the  nobility  at  this  time,  paid  very  little 
attention  to  the  things  of  the  intellect  and  indeed  rather  prided 
themselves  on  their  ignorance  of  even  such  ordinary  attain- 
ments as  reading  and  writing.  While  this  was  doubtless  true 
for  not  a  few  of  them,  Aquinas's  life  stands  in  open  contradic- 
tion with  the  impression  that  any  such  state  of  mind  was  at 
all  general,  or  that  there  were  not  so  many  exceptions  as  to 
nullify  any  such  supposed  rule.  Evidently  those  who  wished 
could  and  did  take  advantage  of  educational  opportunities 
quite  as  in  our  day.  Aquinas's  early  education  was  received 
at  the  famous  monastery  of  Monte  Ca.csino  in  Southern  Italy, 
where  the  Benedictines  for  more  than  six  centuries  had  been 
providing  magnificent  opportunities  for  the  studious  youth 
of  Italy  and  for  serious-minded  students  from  all  over  Europe. 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  271 

When  he  was  scarcely  more  than  a  boy  he  proceeded  to  the 
University  of  Naples,  which  at  that  time,  under  the  patronage 
of  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.,  was  being  encouraged  not  only 
to  take  the  place  so  long  held  by  Salernum  in  the  educational 
world  of  Europe,  but  also  to  rival  the  renowned  Universities 
of  Paris  and  Bologna.  Here  he  remained  until  he  was  seven- 
teen years  of  age  when  he  resolved  to  enter  the  Dominican 
Order,  which  had  been  founded  only  a  short  time  before  by 
St.  Dominic,  yet  had  already  begun  to  make  itself  felt  through- 
out the  religious  and  educational  world  of  the  time. 

Just  as  it  is  the  custom  to  declare  that  as  a  rule,  the  nobility 
cared  little  for  education,  so  it  is  more  or  less  usual  to  pro- 
claim that  practically  only  the  clergy  had  any  opportunities 
for  the  higher  education  during  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
Thomas  had  evidently  been  given  his  early  educational  oppor- 
tunities, however,  without  any  thought  of  the  possibility  of 
his  becoming  a  clergyman.  His  mother  was  very  much  op- 
posed to  his  entrance  among  the  Dominicans,  and  every  effort 
was  made  to  picture  to  him  the  pleasures  and  advantages  that 
would  accrue  to  him  because  of  his  noble  connections,  in  a 
life  in  the  world.  Thomas  insisted,  however,  and  his  firm 
purpose  in  the  matter  finally  conquered  even  the  serious  ob- 
stacles that  a  noble  family  can  place  in  the  way  of  a  boy  of 
seventeen,  as  regards  the  disposition  of  his  life  in  a  way  op- 
posed to  their  wishes. 

The  Dominicans  realized  the  surpassing  intelligence  of  the 
youth  whom  they  had  received  and  accordingly  he  was  sent 
to  be  trained  under  the  greatest  teacher  of  their  order,  the 
famous  Albert  the  Great,  who  was  then  lecturing  at  Cologne. 
Thomas  was  not  the  most  brilliant  of  scholars  as  a  young  man 
and  seems  even  to  have  been  the  butt  of  his  more  successful 
fellow-students.  They  are  said  to  have  called  him  the  dumb 
one,  or  sometimes  because  of  his  bulkiness  even  as  a  youth, 
the  dumb  ox.  Albert  himself,  however,  was  not  deceived  in 
his  estimation  of  the  intellectual  capacity  of  his  young  stu- 
dent, and  according  to  tradition  declared,  that  the  bellowings 
of  this  ox  would  yet  be  heard  throughout  all  Christendom. 
After  a  few  years  spent  at  Cologne,  Thomas  when  he  was  in 
his  early  twenties,  accompanied  Albert  who  had  been  called  to 


272  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Paris.  It  was  at  Paris  that  Thomas  received  his  bachelor's 
degree  and  also  took  out  his  license  to  teach — the  doctor's 
degree  of  our  time.  After  this  some  years  further  were  spent 
at  Cologne  and  then  the  greatness  of  the  man  began  to  dawn 
on  his  generation.  -  He  was  called  back  to  Paris  and  became 
one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  Professors  at  that  great  Uni- 
versity in  the  height  of  her  fame,  at  a  time  when  no  greater 
group  of  men  has  perhaps  ever  been  gathered  together,  than 
shared  with  him  the  honors  of  the  professors'  chairs  at  that 
institution. 

"Albert  the  Great,  Roger  Bacon,  St.  Bonaventure,  and  St. 
Thomas  Aquinas,  form  among  themselves,  so  to  speak,  a 
complete  representation  of  all  the  intellectual  powers :  they 
are  the  four  doctors  who  uphold  the  chair  of  philosophy  in 
the  temple  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Their  mission  was  truly  the 
reestablishment  of  the  sciences,  but  not  their  final  consumma- 
tion. They  were  not  exempt  from  the  ignorances  and  errone- 
ous opinions  of  their  day,  yet  they  did  much  to  overcome  them 
and  succeeded  better  than  is  usually  acknowledged  in  intro- 
ducing the  era  of  modern  thought.  Often,  the  majesty,  I 
may  even  say  the  grace  of  their  conceptions,  disappears  under 
the  veil  of  the  expressions  in  which  they  are  clothed;  but 
these  imperfections  are  amply  atoned  for  by  superabundant 
merits.  Those  Christian  philosophers  did  not  admit  within 
themselves  the  divorce,  since  their  day  become  so  frequent, 
between  the  intellect  and  the  will;  their  lives  were  uniformly 
a  laborious  application  of  their  doctrines.  They  realized  in 
its  plenitude  the  practical  wisdom  so  often  dreamed  of  by 
the  ancients — thev  abstinence  of  the  disciples  of  Pythagoras, 
the  constancy  of  the  stoics,  together  with  humility  and  charity, 
virtues  unknown  to  the  antique  world  Albert  the  Great  and 
St.  Thomas  left  the  castles  of  their  noble  ancestors  to  seek 
obscurity  in  the  cloisters  of  St.  Dominic :  the  former  abdicat- 
ed, and  the  latter  declined,  the  honors  of  the  Church.  It  was 
with  the  cord  of  St.  Francis  that  Roger  Bacon  and  St.  Bona- 
venture girded  their  loins ;  when  the  last  named  was  sought 
that  the  Roman  purple  might  be  placed  upon  his  shoulders, 
he  begged  the  envoys  to  wait  until  he  finished  washing  the 
dishes  of  the  convent.  Thus  they  did  not  withdraw  themselves 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  273 

within  the  exclusive  mysteries  of  an  esoteric  teaching;  they 
opened  the  doors  of  their  schools  to  the  sons  of  shepherds 
and  artisans,  and,  like  their  Master,  Christ,  they  said:  "Come 
all!"  After  having  broken  the  bread  of  the  word,  they  were 
seen  distributing  the  bread  of  alms.  The  poor  knew  them 
and  blessed  their  names.  Even  yet,  after  the  lapse  of  six 
hundred  years,  the  dwellers  in  Paris  kneel  round  the  altar  of 
the  Angel  of  the  School,  and  the  workmen  of  Lyons  deem  it 
an  honor  once  a  year  to  bear  upon  their  brawny  shoulders  the 
triumphant  remains  of  the  'Seraphic  Doctor.'  " 

For  most  modern  students  and  even  scholars  educated  in 
secular  universities  the  name  of  Aquinas  is  scarcely  more  than 
a  type,  the  greatest  of  them,  it  is  true,  of  the  schoolmen  who 
were  so  much  occupied  with  distant,  impractical  and,  to  say 
the  least,  merely  theoretic  metaphysical  problems,  in  the  later 
Middle  Ages.  It  is  true  that  the  renewed  interest  in  Dante 
in  recent  years  in  English  speaking  countries,  has  brought 
about  a  revival  of  attention  in  Aquinas's  work  because  to  Dante, 
the  Angelical  Doctor,  as  he  was  already  called,  meant  so 
much,  and  because  the  Divine  Comedy  has  been  declared  often 
and  often,  by  competent  critics,  to  be  the  Summa  Theologiae  of 
St.  Thomas  of  Aquin  in  verse.  Even  this  adventitious  liter- 
ary interest,  however,  has  not  served  to  lift  the  obscurity  in 
which  Aquinas  is  veiled  for  the  great  majority  of  scholarly 
people,  whose  education  has  been  conducted  according  to  mod- 
ern methods  and  present-day  ideas. 

As  showing  a  hopeful  tendency  to  recognize  the  greatness  of 
these  thinkers  of  the  Middle  Ages  it  is  interesting  to  note  that 
about  five  years  ago  one  of  St.  Thomas's  great  works — the 
Summa  Contra  Gentiles — was  placed  on  the  list  of  subjects 
which  a  candidate  may  at  his  option  offer  in  the  final  honor 
school  of  the  litterae.  humaniores  at  Oxford.  There  has  come 
a  definite  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  this  old  time  philoso- 
pher represents  a  phase  of  intellectual  development  that  must 
not  be  neglected,  and  that  stands  for  such  educational  influ- 
ence as  may  well  be  taken  advantage  of  even  in  our  day  of 
information  rather  than  mental  discipline.  For  the  purposes 
of  this  course  Father  Rickaby,  S.  J.,  has  prepared  an  annotated 
translation  of  the  great  philosophic  work  under  the  title,  "Of 


274  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

God  and  His  Creatures,"  which  was  published  by  Burns  and 
Gates  of  London,  1905.  This  will  enable  those  for  whom  the 
Latin  of  St.  Thomas  was  a  stumbling  block,  to  read  the 
thoughts  of  the  great  scholastic,  in  translation  at  least,  and 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  we  shall  hear  no  more  of  the  trifling 
judgments  which  have  so  disgraced  our  English  philosophi- 
cal literature. 

The  fact  that  Pope  Leo  XIII.,  by  a  famous  papal  bull,  insist- 
ed that  St.  Thomas  should  be  the  standard  of  teaching  in  phil- 
osophy and  theology  in  all  the  Catholic  institutions  of  learning 
throughout  the  world,  aroused  many  thinkers  to  a  realization 
of  the  fact  that  far  from  being  a  thing  of  the  dead  and  dis- 
tant past,  Thomas's  voice  was  still  a  great  living  force  in  the 
world  of  thought.  To  most  people  Leo  XIII.  appealed  as  an 
intensely  practical  and  thoroughly  modern  ruler,  whose  judg- 
ment could  be  depended  on  even  with  regard  to  teaching  pro- 
blems in  philosophy  and  theology.  There  was  about  him  none 
of  the  qualities  that  would  stamp  him  as  a  far-away  mystic 
whose  thoughts  were  still  limited  by  medieval  barriers.  The 
fact  that  in  making  his  declaration  the  Pope  was  only  formu- 
lating as  a  rule,  what  had  spontaneously  become  the  almost 
constant  practice  and  tradition  of  Catholic  schools  and  uni- 
versities, of  itself  served  to  show  how  great  and  how  enduring 
was  St.  Thomas's  influence. 

In  the  drawing  together  of  Christian  sects  that  has  inev- 
itably come  as  a  result  of  the  attacks  made  upon  Christianity 
by  modern  materialists,  and  then  later  by  those  who  would 
in  their  ardor  for  the  higher  criticism  do  away  with  practically 
all  that  is  divine  in  Christianity,  there  has  come  a  very  gen- 
eral realization  even  on  the  part  of  those  outside  of  her  fold, 
that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  occupies  a  position  more 
solidly  founded  on  consistent  logical  premises  and  conclusions 
than  any  of  the  denominations.  Without  her  aid  Christian 
apologetics  would  indeed  be  in  sad  case.  Pope  Leo's  declara- 
tion only  emphasizes  the  fact,  then,  that  the  foundation  stone 
of  Christian  apologetics  was  laid  by  the  great  work  of  St. 
Thomas,  and  that  to  him  more  than  any  other  is  due  that  won- 
derful coordination  of  secular  and  religious  knowledge, 
which  appoints  for  each  of  these  branches  of  knowledge  its 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  275 

proper  place,  and  satisfies  the  human  mind  better  than  any 
other  system  of  philosophic  thought.  This  is  the  real  pane- 
gyric of  St.  Thomas,  and  it  only  adds  to  the  sublimity  of  it 
that  it  should  come  nearly  six  centuries  and  a  half  after  his 
death.  To  only  a  bare  handful  of  men  in  the  history  of  the 
human  race,  is  it  given  thus  to  influence  the  minds  of  subse- 
quent generations  for  so  long  and  to  have  laid  down  the 
principles  of  thought  that  are  to  satisfy  men  for  so  many 
generations.  This  is  why,  in  any  attempt  at  even  inadequate 
treatment  of  the  greatness  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  Thomas 
Aquinas,  who  was  its  greatest  scholar,  must  have  a  prominent 
place.  The  present  generation  has  had  sufficient  interest  in 
him  aroused,  however,  amply  to  justify  such  a  giving  of  space. 

When  Leo  XIII.  made  his  recommendation  of  St.  Thomas 
it  was  not  as  one  who  had  merely  heard  of  the  works  of  the 
great  medieval  thinker,  or  knew  them  only  by  tradition,  or  had 
slightly  dipped  into  them  as  a  dilettante,  but  as  one  who  had 
been  long  familiar  with  them,  who  had  studied  the  Angelical 
Doctor  in  youth,  who  had  pondered  his  wisdom  in  middle  age, 
and  resorted  again  and  again  to  him  for  guidance  in  the  diffi- 
culties of  doctrine  in  maturer  years,  and  the  difficulties  of 
morals  such  as  presented  themselves  in  his  practical  life  as  a 
churchman.  It  was  out  of  the  depths  of  his  knowledge  of  him, 
that  the  great  Pope,  whom  all  the  modern  world  came  to 
honor  so  reverently  before  his  death,  drew  his  supreme  admira- 
tion for  St.  Thomas  and  his  recognition  of  the  fact  that  no 
safer  guide  in  the  thorny  path  of  modern  Christian  apolo- 
getics could  be  followed,  than  this  wonderful  genius  who  first 
systematized  human  thought  as  far  as  the  relations  of  Creator 
to  creature  are  considered,  in  the  heyday  of  medieval  scholar- 
ship and  university  teaching. 

Those  who  have  their  knowledge  of  scholastic  philosophy 
at  second  hand,  from  men  who  proclaim  this  period  of  human 
development  as  occupied  entirely  with  fruitless  discussion 
of  metaphysical  theories,  will  surely  think  that  they  could 
find  nothing  of  interest  for  them  in  St.  Thomas's  writings.  It 
is  true  the  casual  reader  may  not  penetrate  far  enough  into 
his  writing  to  realize  its  significance  and  to  appreciate  its 
depth  of  knowledge,  but  the  serious  student  finds  constant 


276  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

details  of  supreme  interest  because  of  their  applications  to 
the  most  up-to-date  problems.  We  venture  to  quote  an  ex- 
ample that  will  show  this  more  or  less  perfectly  according  to 
the  special  philosophic  interest  of  readers.  It  is  St.  Thomas's 
discussion  of  the  necessity  there  was  for  the  revelation  of  the 
truth  of  the  existence  of  God.  His  statement  of  the  reasons 
why  men,  occupied  with  the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  would  not 
ordinarily  come  to  this  truth  unless  it  were  revealed  to  them, 
though  they  actually  have  the  mental  capacity  to  reach  it  by 
reason  alone,  will  show  how  sympathetically  the  Saint  appre- 
ciated human  conditions  as  they  are. 

"If  a  truth  of  this  nature  were  left  to  the  sole  inquiry  of 
reason,  three  disadvantages  would  follow.  One  is  that  the 
knowledge  of  God  would  be  confined  to  few.  The  discovery 
of  truth  is  the  fruit  of  studious  inquiry.  From  this  very  many 
are  hindered.  Some  are  hindered  by  a  constitutional  unfit- 
ness,  their  natures  being  ill-disposed  to  the  acquisition  of 
knowledge.  They  could  never  arrive  by  study  at  the  highest 
grade  of  human  knowledge,  which  consists  in  the  knowledge 
of  God.  Others  are  hindered  by  the  claims  of  business  and 
the  ties  of  the  management  of  property.  There  must  be  in  hu- 
man society  some  men  devoted  to  temporal  affairs.  These 
could  not  possibly  spend  time  enough  in  the  learned  lessons 
of  speculative  inquiry  to  arrive  at  the  highest  point  of  human 
inquiry,  the  knowledge  of  God.  Some  again  are  hindered  by 
sloth.  The  knowledge  of  the  truths  that  reason  can  investi- 
gate concerning  God  presupposes  much  previous  knowledge ; 
indeed  almost  the  entire  study  of  philosophy  is  directed  to 
the  knowledge  of  God.  Hence,  of  all  parts  of  philosophy  that 
part  stands  over  to  be  learned  last,  which  consists  of  meta- 
physics dealing  with  (divine  things).  Thus  only  with  great 
labour  of  study  is  it  possible  to  arrive  at  the  searching  out  of 
the  aforesaid  truth ;  and  this  labour  few  are  willing  to  undergo 
for  sheer  love  of  knowledge. 

"Another  disadvantage  is  that  such  as  did  arrive  at  the 
knowledge  or  discovery  of  the  aforesaid  truth  would  take  a 
long  time  over  it  on  account  of  the  profundity  of  such  truth, 
and  the  many  prerequisites  to  the  study,  and  also  because  in 
youth  and  early  manhood  the  soul,  tossed  to  and  fro  on  the 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  277 

waves  of  passion,  is  not  fit  for  the  study  of  such  high  truth; 
only  in  settled  age  does  the  soul  become  prudent  and  scientific, 
as  the  philosopher  says.  Thus  if  the  only  way  open  to  the  know- 
ledge of  God  were  the  way  of  reason,  the  human  race  would 
(remain)  in  thick  darkness  of  ignorance:  as  the  knowledge  of 
God,  the  best  instrument  for  making  men  perfect  and  good, 
would  accrue  only  to  a  few  after  a  considerable  lapse  of  time. 

"A  third  disadvantage  is  that,  owing  to  the  infirmity  of  our 
judgment  and  the  perturbing  force  of  imagination,  there  is 
some  admixture  of  error  in  most  of  the  investigations  of  hu- 
man reason.  This  would  be  a  reason  to  many  for  continuing 
to  doubt  even  of  the  most  accurate  demonstrations,  not  per- 
ceiving the  force  of  the  demonstration,  and  seeing  the  divers 
judgments,  of  divers  persons  who  have  the  name  of  being  wise 
men.  Besides,  in  the  midst  of  much  Demonstrated  truth  there 
is  sometimes  an  element  of  error,  not  demonstrated  but  assert- 
ed on  the  strength  of  some  plausible  and  sophistic  reasoning 
that  is  taken  for  a  demonstration.  And  therefore  it  was  nec- 
essary for  the  real  truth  concerning  divine  things  to  be  pre- 
sented to  men  with  fixed  certainty  by  way  of  faith.  Whole- 
some, therefore,  is  the  arrangement  of  divine  clemency,  where- 
by things  even  that  reason  can  investigate  are  commanded  to  be 
held  on  faith,  so  that  all  might  be  easily  partakers  of  the  know- 
ledge of  God,  and  that  without  doubt  and  error  (Book  i.  cix)." 

A  still  more  striking  example  of  Thomas's  eminently  sym- 
pathetic discussion  of  a  most  difficult  problem,  is  to  be  found 
in  his  treatment  of  the  question  of  the  Resurrection  of  the 
Body.  The  doctrine  that  men  will  rise  again  on  the  last  day 
with  the  same  bodies  that  they  had  while  here  on  earth,  has 
been  a  stumbling  block  for  the  faith  of  a  great  many  persons 
from  the  beginning  of  Christianity.  In  recent  times  the  dis- 
covery of  the  indestructibility  of  matter,  far  from  lessening  the 
skeptical  elements  in  this  problem  as  might  have  been  antici- 
pated, has  rather  emphasized  them.  While  the  material  of 
which  man's  body  was  composed  is  never  destroyed,  it  is 
broken  up  largely  into  its  original  elements  and  is  used  over 
and  over  again  in  many  natural  processes,  and  even  enters  into 
the  composition  of  other  men's  bodies  during  the  long  suc- 
ceeding generations.  Here  is  a  problem  upon  which  it  would 


2  78  ORE  A  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ordinarily  be  presumed  at  once,  that  a  philosophic  writer  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  could  throw  no  possible  light.  We  venture 
to  say,  however,  that  the  following  passage  which  we  quote 
from  an  article  on  St.  Thomas  in  a  recent  copy  of  the  Dublin 
Reviezv,  represents  the  best  possible  solution  of  the  problem, 
even  in  the  face  of  all  our  modern  advance  in  science. 

"What  does  not  bar  numerical  unity  in  a  man  while  he  lives 
on  uninterruptedly  (writes  St.  Thomas),  clearly  can  be  no  bar 
to  the  identity  of  the  arisen  man  with  the  man  that  was.  In 
a  man's  body,  while  he  lives,  there  are  not  always  the  same 
parts  in  respect  of  matter  but  only  in  respect  of  species.  In 
respect  of  matter  there  is  a  flux  and  reflux  of  parts.  Still  that 
fact  does  not  bar  the  man's  numerical  unity  from  the  begin- 
ning to  the  end  of  his  life.  The  form  and  species  of  the  several 
parts  continue  throughout  life,  but  the  matter  of  the  parts  is 
dissolved  by  the  natural  heat,  and  new  matter  accrues  through 
nourishment.  Yet  the  man  is  not  numerically  different  by  the 
difference  of  his  component  parts  at  different  ages,  although 
it  is  true  that  the  material  composition  of  the  man  at  one  stage 
of  his  life  is  not  his  material  composition  at  another.  Addition 
is  made  from  without  to  the  stature  of  a  boy  without  prejudice 
to  his  identity,  for  the  boy  and  the  adult  are  numerically  the 
same  man." 

In  a  word,  Aquinas  says  that  we  recognize  that  the  body  of 
the  boy  and  of  the  man  are  the  same  though  they  are  composed 
of  quite  different  material.  With  this  in  mind  the  problem 
of  the  Resurrection  takes  on  quite  a  new  aspect  from  what  it 
held  before.  What  we  would  call  attention  to,  however,  is  not 
so  much  the  matter  of  the  argument  as  the  mode  of  it.  It  is  es- 
sentially modern  in  every  respect.  Not  only  does  Thomas 
know  that  the  body  changes  completely  during  the  course  of 
years,  but  he  knows  that  the  agent  by  which  the  matter  of  the 
parts  is  dissolved  is  "the  natural  heat/'  while  "new  matter  ac- 
crues through  nourishment."  The  passage  contains  a  marvel- 
ous anticipation  of  present-day  physiology  as  well  as  a  dis- 
tinct contribution  to  Christian  apologetics.  This  coordination 
of  science  and  theology,  though  usually  thought  to  be  lacking 
among  scholastic  philosophers,  is  constantly  typical  of  their 
mode  of  thought  and  discussion,  and  this  example,  far  from 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  279 

being  exceptional,  is  genuinely  representative  of  them,  as  all 
serious  students  of  scholasticism  know. 

Perhaps  the  last  thing  for  which  the  ordinary  person  would 
expect  to  find  a  great  modern  teacher  recommending  the  read- 
ing of  St.  Thomas  would  be  to  find  therein  the  proper  doc- 
trine with  regard  to  liberty  and  the  remedies  for  our  modern 
social  evils.  Those  who  will  recall,  however,  how  well  the  gen- 
erations of  the  Thirteenth  Century  faced  social  problems  even 
more  serious  than  ours — for  the  common  people  had  no 
rights  at  all  the  beginning  of  the  century,  yet  secured  them 
with  such  satisfaction  as  to  lay  the  foundation  of  the  modern 
history  of  liberty — will  realize  that  the  intellectual  men  of  the 
time  must  have  had  a  much  better  grasp  of  the  principles  un- 
derlying such  problems,  than  would  otherwise  be  imagakied. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  St.  Thomas's  treatment  of  Society,  its 
rights  and  duties,  and  the  mutual  relationship  between  it  and 
the  individual,  is  one  of  the  triumphs  of  his  wonderful  work 
in  ethics.  It  is  no  wonder,  then,  that  the  great  Pope  of  the  end 
of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  whose  encyclicals  showed  that  he 
understood  very  thoroughly  these  social  evils  of  our  time, 
recognized  their  tendencies  and  appreciated  their  danger,  rec- 
ommended as  a  remedy  for  them  the  reading  of  St.  Thomas. 
Pope  Leo  said : 

"Domestic  and  civil  society,  even,  which,  as  all  see,  is  ex- 
posed to  great  danger  from  the  plague  of  perverse  opinions, 
would  certainly  enjoy  a  far  more  peaceful  and  a  securer  ex- 
istence if  more  wholesome  doctrine  were  taught  in  the  acad- 
emies and  schools — one  more  in  conformity  with  the  teach- 
ing of  the  Church,  such  as  is  contained  in  the  works  of  Thomas 
Aquinas. 

"For  the  teachings  of  Thomas  on  the  true  meaning  of  liberty 
— which  at  this  time  is  running  into  license — on  the  divine 
origin  of  all  authority,  on  laws  and  their  force,  on  the  pater- 
nal and  just  rule  of  princes,  on  obedience  to  the  higher  powers, 
on  mutual  charity  one  towards  another — on  all  of  these  and 
kindred  subjects,  have  very  great  and  invincible  force  to  over- 
turn those  principles  of  the  new  order  which  are  well  known 
to  be  dangerous  to  the  peaceful  order  of  things  and  to  public 
safety." 


280  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

For  this  great  Pope,  however,  there  was  no  greater  teacher 
of  any  of  the  serious  philosophical,  ethical  and  theological 
problems  than  this  Saint  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  His  posi- 
tion in  the  matter  would  only  seem  exaggerated  to  those  who 
do  not  appreciate  Pope  Leo's  marvelous  practical  intelligence, 
and  Saint  Thomas's  exhaustive  treatment  of  most  of  the  ques- 
tions that  have  always  been  uppermost  in  the  minds  of  men. 
While,  with  characteristic  humility,  he  considered  himself 
scarcely  more  than  a  commentator  on  Aristotle,  his  natural 
genius  was  eminently  original  and  he  added  much  more  of  his 
own  than  what  he  took  from  his  master.  There  can  be  no  doubt 
that  his  was  one  of  the  most  gifted  minds  in  all  humanity's  his- 
tory and  that  for  profundity  of  intelligence  he  deserves  to  be 
classed  with  Plato  and  Aristotle,  as  his  great  disciple  Dante  is 
placed  between  Homer  and  Shakespeare.  Those  who  know  St. 
Thomas  the  best,  and  have  spent  their  lives  in  the  study  of  him, 
not  only  cordially  welcomed  but  ardently  applauded  Pope  Leo's 
commendation  of  him,  and  considered  that  lofty  as  was  his 
praise  there  was  not  a  word  they  would  have  changed  even  in 
such  a  laudatory  passage  as  the  following: 

"While,  therefore,  we  hold  that  every  word  of  wisdom,  every 
useful  thing  by  whomsoever  discovered  or  planned,  ought  to 
be  received  with  a  willing  and  grateful  mind,  We  exhort  you, 
Venerable  Brethren,  in  all  earnestness  to  restore  the  golden 
wisdom  of  St.  Thomas,  and  to  spread  it  far  and  wide  for  the 
defense  and  beauty  of  the  Catholic  faith,  for  the  good  of  society, 
and  for  the  advantage  of  all  the  sciences.  The  wisdom  of  St. 
Thomas,  We  say — for  if  anything  is  taken  up  with  too  great 
subtlety  by  the  scholastic  doctors,  or  too  carelessly  stated — 
if  there  is  anything  that  ill  agrees  with  the  discoveries  of  a 
later  age,  or,  in  a  word,  improbable  in  whatever  way,  it  does 
not  enter  Our  mind,  to  propose  that  for  imitation  to  Our  age. 
Let  carefully  selected  teachers  endeavor  to  implant  the  doc- 
trines of  Thomas  Aquinas  in  the  minds  of  students,  and  set 
forth  clearly  his  solidity  and  excellence  over  others,  Let  the 
academies  already  founded  or  to  be  founded  by  you  illustrate 
and  defend  this  doctrine,  and  use  it  for  refutation  of  prevail- 
ing errors.  But,  lest  the  false  for  the  true  or  the  corrupt  for 
the  pure  be  drunk  in,  be  watchful  that  the  doctrine  of  Thomas 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  281 

be  drawn  from  his  own  fountains,  or  at  least  from  those  rivu- 
lets which  derived  from  the  very  fount,  have  thus  far  flowed, 
according  to  the  established  agreement  of  learned  men,  pure 
and  clear;  be  careful  to  guard  the  minds  of  youth  from  those 
which  are  said  to  flow  thence,  but  in  reality  are  gathered  from 
strange  and  unwholesome  streams." 

Tributes  quite  as  laudatory  are  not  lacking  from  modern 
secular  writers  and  while  there  have  been  many  derogatory  re- 
marks, these  have  always  come  from  men  who  either  knew 
Aquinas  only  at  second  hand,  or  who  confess  that  they  had 
been  unable  to  read  him  understandingly.  The  praise  all  comes 
from  men  who  have  spent  years  in  the  study  of  his  writings. 

A  recent  writer  in  the  Dublin  Review  (January,  1906)  sums 
up  his  appreciation  of  one  of  St.  Thomas's  works,  his  masterly 
book  in  philosophy,  as  follows : 

"The  Summa  contra  Gentiles  is  an  historical  monument  of 
the  first  importance  for  the  history  of  philosophy.  In  the  va- 
riety of  its  contents,  it  is  a  perfect  encyclopedia  of  the  learning 
of  the  day.  By  it  we  can  fix  the  high-water  mark  of  Thirteenth 
Century  thought,  for  it  contains  the  lectures  of  a  doctor  second 
to  none  in  the  great  school  of  thought  then  flourishing — the 
University  of  Paris.  It  is  by  the  study  of  such  books  that  one 
enters  into  the  mental  life  of  the  period  at  which  they  were 
written;  not  by  the  hasty  perusal  of  histories  of  philosophy. 
No  student  of  the  Contra  Gentiles  is  likely  to  acquiesce  in  the 
statement  that  the  Middle  Ages  were  a  time  when  mankind 
seemed  to  have  lost  the  power  of  thinking  for  themselves. 
Medieval  people  thought  for  themselves,  thoughts  curiously 
different  from  ours  and  profitable  to  study." 

Here  is  a  similar  high  tribute  for  Aquinas's  great  work  on 
Theology  from  his  modern  biographer,  Father  Vaughan: 

"The  'Summa  Theologica'  is  a  mighty  synthesis,  thrown  into 
technical  and  scientific  form,  of  the  Catholic  traditions  of  East 
and  West,  of  the  infallible  dicta  of  the  Sacred  Page,  and  of  the 
most  enlightened  conclusions  of  human  reason,  gathered  from 
the  soaring  intuitions  of  the  Academy,  and  the  rigid  severity 
of  the  Lyceum. 

"Its  author  was  a  man  endowed  with  the  characteristic  notes 
of  the  three  great  Fathers  of  Greek  Philosophy :  he  possessed 


282  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  intellectual  honesty  and  precision  of  Socrates,  the  analyti- 
cal keenness  of  Aristotle,  and  that  yearning  after  wisdom  and 
light  which  was  the  distinguishing  mark  of  Tlato  the  divine,' 
and  which  has  ever  been  one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  the 
highest  intuitions  of  religion." 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  the  very  greatness  of  Thomas 
Aquinas,  and  the  great  group  of  contemporaries  who  were  so 
close  to  him,  that  produced  an  unfortunate  effect  on  subsequent 
thinking  and  teaching  in  Europe.  These  men  were  so  sur- 
passing in  their  grasp  of  the  whole  round  of  human  thought, 
that  their  works  came  to  be  worshiped  more  or  less  as  fetishes, 
and  men  did  not  think  for  themselves  but  appealed  to  them  as 
authorities.  It  is  a  great  but  an  unfortunate  tribute  to  the  scho- 
lastics of  the  Thirteenth  Century  that  subsequent  generations 
for  many  hundred  years  not  only  did  not  think  that  they  could 
improve  on  them,  but  even  hesitated  to  entertain  the  notion 
that  they  could  equal  them.  Turner  in  his  History  of  Philoso- 
phy has  pointed  out  this  fact  clearly  and  has  attributed  to  it, 
to  a  great  extent,  the  decadence  of  scholastic  philosophy. 

"The  causes  of  the  decay  of  scholastic  philosophy  were  both 
internal  and  external.  The  internal  causes  are  to  be  found  in 
the  condition  of  Scholastic  philosophy  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century.  The  great  work  of  Christian  syncretism 
had  been  completed  by  the  masters  of  the  preceding  period; 
revelation  and  science  had  been  harmonized;  contribution  had 
been  levied  on  the  pagan  philosophies  of  Greece  and  Arabia, 
and  whatever  truth  these  philosophies  had  possessed  had  been 
utilized  to  form  the  basis  of  a  rational  exposition  of  Christian 
revelation.  The  efforts  of  Roger  Bacon  and  of  Alfred  the 
Great  to  reform  scientific  method  had  failed;  the  sciences 
were  not  cultivated.  There  was,  therefore,  no  source  of  de- 
velopment, and  nothing  was  left  for  the  later  Scholastics  ex- 
cept to  dispute  as  to  the  meaning  of  principles,  to  comment  on 
the  text  of  this  master  or  of  that,  and  to  subtilize  to  such  an  ex- 
tent that  Scholasticism  soon  became  a  synonym  for  captious 
quibbling.  The  great  Thomistic  principle  that  in  philosophy 
the  argument  from  authority  is  the  weakest  of  all  arguments 
was  forgotten;  Aristotle,  St.  Thomas,  or  Scotus  became  the 
criterion  of  truth,  and  as  Solomon,  whose  youthful  wisdom  had 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  283 

astonished  the  world,  profaned  his  old  age  by  the  worship  of 
idols,  the  philosophy  of  the  schools,  in  the  days  of  its  decadence, 
turned  from  the  service  of  truth  to  prostrate  itself  before  the 
shrine  of  a  master.  Dialectic,  which  in  the  Thirteenth  Century 
had  been  regarded  as  the  instrument  of  knowledge,  now  be- 
came an  object  of  study  for  the  sake  of  display;  and  to  this 
fault  of  method  was  added  a  fault  of  style — an  uncouthness 
and  barbarity  of  terminology  which  bewilder  the  modern 
reader." 

The  appreciation  of  St.  Thomas  in  his  own  time  is  the  great- 
est tribute  to  the  critical  faculty  of  the  century  that  could  be 
made.  "Genius  is  praised  but  starves,"  in  the  words  of  the  old 
Roman  poet.  Certainly  most  of  the  geniuses  of  the  world 
have  met  with  anything  but  their  proper  meed  of  appreciation 
in  their  own  time.  This  is  not  true,  however,  during  our  Thir- 
teenth Century.  We  have  already  shown  how  the  artists,  and 
especially  Giotto,  (at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  Giotto 
was  only  twenty- four  years  old)  were  appreciated,  and  how 
much  attention  Dante  began  to  attract  from  his  contemporaries, 
and  we  may  add  that  all  the  great  scholars  of  the  period  had  a 
following  that  insured  the  wide  publication  of  their  works,  at 
a  time  when  this  had  to  be  accomplished  by  slow  and  patient 
hand-labor.  The  appreciation  for  Thomas,  indeed,  came  near 
proving  inimical  to  his  completion  of  his  important  works  in 
philosophy  and  theology.  Many  places  in  Europe  wanted  to 
have  the  opportunity  to  hear  him.  We  have  only  reintroduced 
the  practise  of  exchanging  university  professors  in  very 
recent  years.  This  was  quite  a  common  practise  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  however,  and  so  St.  Thomas,  after  having 
been  professor  at  Paris  and  later  at  Rome,  taught  for  a  while 
at  Naples  and  then  at  a  number  of  the  Italian  universities. 

Everywhere  he  went  he  was  noted  for  the  kindliness  of  his 
disposition  and  for  his  power  to  make  friends.  Looked  upon 
as  the  greatest  thinker  of  his  time  it  would  be  easy  to  expect 
that  there  should  be" some  signs  of  consciousness  of  this,  and  as 
a  consequence  some  of  that  unpleasant  self-assertion  which  so 
often  makes  great  intellectual  geniuses  unpopular,  Thomas, 
however,  never  seems  to  have  had  any  over-appreciation  of 
his  own  talents,  but,  realizing  how  little  he  knew  compared  to 


284  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  whole  round  of  knowledge,  and  how  superficial  his  think- 
ing was  compared  to  the  depth  of  the  mysteries  he  was  trying, 
not  to  solve  but  to  treat  satisfactorily,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
there  was  no  question  of  conceit  having  a  place  in  his  life. 
This  must  account  for  the  universal  friendship  of  all  who  came 
in  contact  with  him.  The  popes  insisted  on  having  him  as  a 
professor  at  the  Roman  university  in  which  they  were  so  much 
interested,  and  which  they  wished  to  make  one  of  the  greatest 
universities  of  the  time.  Here  Thomas  was  brought  in  con- 
tact with  ecclesiastics  from  all  over  the  world  and  helped  to 
form  the  mind  of  the  time.  Those  who  think  the  popes  of  the 
Middle  Ages  opposed  to  education  should  study  the  records 
of  this  Roman  university. 

Thomas  became  the  great  friend  of  successive  popes,  some 
of  whom  had  been  brought  in  contact  with  him  during  his 
years  of  studying  and  teaching  at  Rome  and  Paris.  This  gave 
him  many  privileges  and  abundant  encouragement,  but  finally 
came  near  ruining  his  career  as  a  philosophic  writer  and  teach- 
er, since  his  papal  friends  wished  to  raise  him  to  high  eccles- 
iastical dignities.  Urban  IV.  seems  first  to  have  thought  of 
this  but  his  successor  Clement  IV.,  one  of  the  noblest  church- 
men of  the  period,  who  had  himself  wished  to  decline  the 
papacy,  actually  made  out  the  Bull,  creating  Thomas  Arch- 
bishop of  Naples.  When  this  document  was  in  due  course 
presented  to  Aquinas,  far  from  giving  him  any  pleasure  it 
proved  a  source  of  grief  and  pain.  He  saw  the  chance  to  do 
his  life-work  slipping  from  him.  This  was  so  evident  to  his 
friend  the  Pope  that  he  withdrew  the  Bull  and  St.  Thomas 
was  left  in  peace  during  the  rest  of  his  career,  and  allowed 
to  prosecute  that  one  great  object  to  which  he  had  dedicated 
his  mighty  intellect.  This  was  the  summing  up  of  all  human 
knowledge  in  a  work  that  would  show  the  relation  of  the 
Creator  to  the  creature,  and  apply  the  great  principles  of  Greek 
philosophy  to  the  sublime  truths  of  Christianity.  Had  Thomas 
consented  to  accept  the  Archbishopric  of  Naples  in  all  human 
probability,  as  Thomas's  great  English  biographer  remarks, 
the  Summa  Theologica  would  never  have  been  written.  It 
seems  not  unlikely  that  the  dignity  was  pressed  upon  him  by 
the  Pope  partly  at  the  solicitation  of  powerful  members  of 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  285 

his  family,  who  hoped  in  this  to  have  some  compensation  for 
their  relative's  having  abandoned  his  opportunities  for  military 
and  worldly  glory.  It  is  fortunate  that  their  efforts  failed, 
and  it  is  only  one  of  the  many  examples  in  history  of  the  short- 
sightedness there  may  be  in  considerations  that  seem  founded 
on  the  highest  human  prudence. 

Thomas  was  left  free  then  to  go  on  with  his  great  work,  and 
during  the  next  five  years  he  applied  every  spare  moment  to 
the  completion  of  his  Summa.  More  students  have  pronounced 
this  the  greatest  work  ever  written  than  is  true  for  any  other 
text-book  that  has  ever  been  used  in  schools.  That  it  should  be 
the  basis  of  modern  theological  teaching  after  seven  centuries  is 
of  itself  quite  sufficient  to  proclaim  its  merit.  The  men  who 
are  most  enthusiastic  about  it  are  those  who  have  used  it  the 
longest  and  who  know  it  the  best. 

St.  Thomas's  English  biographer,  the  Very  Rev.  Roger  Bede 
Vaughan,  who  is  a  worthy  member  of  that  distinguished  Vau- 
ghan  family  who  have  given  so  many  zealous  ecclesiastics  to 
the  English  Church  and  so  many  scholars  to  support  the  cause 
of  Christianity,  can  scarcely  say  enough  of  this  great  work, 
nor  of  its  place  in  the  realm  of  theology.  When  it  is  recalled 
that  Father  Vaughan  was  not  a  member  of  St.  Thomas's  own 
order,  the  Dominicans,  but  of  the  Benedictines,  it  will  be 
seen  that  it  was  not  because  of  any  esprit  de  corps,  but  out  of 
the  depths  of  his  great  admiration  for  the  saint,  that  his  words 
of  praise  were  written : 

"It  has  been  shown  abundantly  that  no  writer  before  the 
Angelical's  day  could  have  created  a  synthesis  of  all  knowledge. 
The  greatest  of  the  classic  Fathers  have  been  treated  of,  and  the 
reasons  of  their  inability  are  evident.  As  for  the  scholastics 
who  more  immediately  preceded  the  Angelical.,  their  minds 
were  not  ripe  for  so  great  and  complete  a  work:  the  fullness 
of  time  had  not  yet  come.  Very  possibly  had  not  Albert  the 
Great  and  Alexander  (of  Hales)  preceded  him,  St.  Thomas 
would  not  have  been  prepared  to  write  his  master-work;  just 
as,  most  probably,  Newton  would  never  have  discovered  the 
law  of  gravitation  had  it  not  been  for  the  previous  labors  of 
Galileo  and  of  Kepler.  But  just  as  the  English  astronomer 
stands  solitary  in  his  greatness,  though  surrounded  and  sue- 


2  86  GREA  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ceeded  by  men  of  extraordinary  eminence,  so  also  the  Angeli- 
cal stands  by  himself  alone,  although  Albertus  Magnus  was 
a  genius,  Alexander  was  a  theological  king,  and  Bonaven- 
ture  a  seraphic  doctor.  Just  as  the  Principia  is  a  work  unique, 
unreachable,  so,  too,  is  the  'Summa  Theblogica'  of  the  great 
Angelical.  Just  as  Dante  stands  alone  among  the  poets,  so 
stands  St.  Thomas  in  the  schools." 

Probably  the  most  marvelous  thing  about  the  life  of  St. 
Thomas  is  his  capacity  for  work.  His  written  books  fill  up 
some  twenty  folios  in  their  most  complete  edition.  This  of 
itself  would  seem  to  be  enough  to  occupy  a  lifetime  without 
anything  more.  His  written  works,  however,  represent  ap- 
parently only  the  products  of  his  hours  at  leisure.  He  was 
only  a  little  more  than  fifty  when  he  died  and  he  had  been  a 
university  professor  at  Cologne,  at  Bologna,  at  Paris,  at 
Rome,  and  at  Naples.  In  spite  of  the  amount  of  work  that  he 
was  thus  asked  to  do,  his  order,  the  Dominican,  constantly 
called  on  him  to  busy  himself  with  certain  of  its  internal  affairs. 
On  one  occasion  at  least  he  visited  England  in  order  to  attend 
a  Dominican  Chapter  at  Oxford,  and  the  better  part  of  several 
years  at  Paris  was  occupied  with  his  labors  to  secure  for  his 
brethren  a  proper  place  in  the  university,  so  that  they  might 
act  as  teachers  and  yet  have  suitable  opportunities  for  the 
education  and  the  discipline  of  the  members  of  the  Order. 

Verily  it  would  seem  as  though  his  days  must  have  been 
at  least  twice  as  long  as  those  of  the  ordinary  scholar  and 
student  to  accomplish  so  much;  yet  he  is  only  a  type  of  the 
monks  of  the  Middle  Ages,  of  whom  so  many  people  seem  to 
think  that  their  principal  traits  were  to  be  fat  and  lazy.  Thomas 
was  fat,  as  we  know  from  the  picture  of  him  which  shows  him 
before  a  desk  from  which  a  special  segment  has  been  removed 
to  accommodate  more  conveniently  a  rather  abnormal  abdomi- 
nal development,  but  as  to  laziness,  surely  the  last  thing  that 
would  occur  to  anyone  who  knows  anything  about  him,  would 
be  to  accuse  him  of  it.  Clearly  those  who  accept  the  ancient 
notion  of  monkish  laziness  will  never  understand  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  great  educational  progress  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury was  due  almost  entirely  to  monks. 


AQUINAS  THE  SCHOLAR.  287 

There  is  another  extremely  interesting  side  to  the  intellec- 
tual character  of  Thomas  Aquinas  which  is  usually  not  realized 
by  the  ordinary  student  of  philosophy  and  theology,  and  still 
less  perhaps  by  those  who  are  interested  in  him  from  an  edu- 
cational standpoint.  This  is  his  poetical  faculty.  For  Thomas  as 
for  many  of  the  great  intellectual  geniuses  of  the  modern  timfc, 
the  sacrament  of  the  Holy  Eucharist  was  one  of  the  most 
wondrously  satisfying  devotional  mysteries  of  Christianity  and 
the  subject  of  special  devotion.  In  our  own  time  the  great 
Cardinal  Newman  manifested  this  same  attitude  of  mind. 
Thomas  because  of  his  well-known  devotion  to  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  was  asked  by  the  Pope  to  write  the  office  for  the 
then  recently  established  feast  of  Corpus  Christi.  There  are 
always  certain  hymns  incorporated  in  the  offices  of  the  different 
Feast  days.  It  might  ordinarily  have  been  expected  that  a 
scholar  like  Aquinas  would  write  the  prose  portions  of  the 
office,  leaving  the  hymns  for  some  other  hand,  or  selecting 
hymns  from  some  older  sacred  poetry.  Thomas,  however, 
wrote  both  hymns  and  prose,  and,  surprising  as  it  may  be, 
his  hymns  are  some  of  the  most  beautiful  that  have  ever  been 
composed  and  remain  the  admiration  of  posterity. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  in  this  regard  that  Thomas's  career 
occurred  during  the  period  when  Latin  hymn  writing  was  at 
its  apogee.  The  Dies  Irae  and  the  Stabat  Mater  were  both 
written  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  the  most  precious 
Latin  hymns  of  all  times  were  composed  during  the  century 
and  a  half  from  1150  to  1300.  Aquinas's  hymns  do  not  fail 
to  challenge  comparison  even  with  the  greatest  of  these.  While 
he  had  an  eminently  devotional  subject,  it  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  certain  supremely  difficult  theological  problems  were 
involved  in  the  expression  of  devotion  to  the  Blessed  Sacra- 
ment. In  spite  of  the  difficulties,  Thomas  succeeded  in  making 
not  only  good  theology  but  great  poetry.  A  portion  of  one  of 
his  hymns,  the  Tantum  Ergo,  has  been  perhaps  more  used  in 
church  services  than  any  other,  with  the  possible  exception  of 
the  Dies  Irae.  Another  one  of  his  beautiful  hymns  that  especi- 
ally deserves  to  be  admired,  is  less  well  known  and  so  I  have 
ventured  to  quote  three  selected  stanzas  of  it,  as  an  illustration 


288  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

of  Thomas's  command  over  rhyme  and  rhythm  in  the  Latin 
tongue. 

Adoro  te  devote,  latens  Deitas,* 
Quae  sub  his  figuris  vere  latitas. 
Tibi  se  cor  meum  totum  subjicit, 
Quia  te  contemplans  totum  deficit. 

Visus,  tactus,  gustus,  in  te  fallitur, 
Sed  auditu  solo  tute  creditur : 
Credo  quidquid  dixit  Dei  films 
Nihil  veritatis  verbo  verius. 

And   the   less   musical   but   wonderfully   significative   fourth 
stanza — 

Plagas  sicut  Thomas  non  intueor, 

Deum  tamen  meum  te  confiteor, 

Fac  me  tibi  semper  magis  credere, 

In  te  spem  habere,  te  diligere. 

Only  the  ardent  study  of  many  years  will  give  anything  like 
an  adequate  idea  of  the  great  schoolman's  universal  genius. 
I  am  content  if  I  have  conveyed  a  few  hints  that  will  help  to 
a  beginning  of  an  acquaintance  with  one  of  the  half  dozen 
supreme  minds  of  our  race. 

*The  following  translation  made  by  Justice  O'Hagan  renders  sense 
and  sound  into  English  as  adequately  perhaps  as  is  possible : 

Hidden  God,  devoutly  I  adore  thee, 
Truly  present  underneath  these  veils : 

All  my  heart  subdues  itself  before  thee, 
Since  it  all  before  thee  faints  and  fails. 

Not  to  sight,  or  taste,  or  touch  be  credit, 

Hearing  only  do  we  trust  secure ; 
I  believe,  for  God  the  Son  hath  said  it — 

Word  of  truth  that  ever  shall  endure. 


Though  I  look  not  on  thy  wounds  with  Thomas, 
Thee,  my  L,ord,  and  thee,  my  God,  I  call: 

Make  me  more  and  more  believe  thy  promise, 
Hope  in  thee,  and  love  thee  over  all. 


LOUIS  THE  MONARCH.  289 

XVIII 
ST.  LOUIS  THE  MONARCH. 


If  large  numbers  of  men  are  to  be  ruled  by  one  of  their  num- 
ber, as  seems  more  or  less  inevitable  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
things,  then,  without  doubt,  the  best  model  of  what  such  a  mon- 
arch's life  should  be,  is  to  be  found  in  that  of  Louis  IX.,  who 
for  nearly  half  a  century  was  the  ruler  of  France  during  our 
period.  Of  all  the  rulers  of  men  of  whom  we  have  record  in 
history  he  probably  took  his  duties  most  seriously,  with  most 
regard  for  others,  and  least  for  himself  and  for  his  family. 
There  is  not  a  single  relation  of  life  in  which  he  is  not  distin- 
guished and  in  which  his  career  is  not  worth  studying,  as  an 
example  of  what  can  be  done  by  a  simple,  earnest,  self -forget- 
ful man,  to  make  life  better  and  happier  for  all  those  who  come 
in  contact  with  him. 

His  relations  with  his  mother  are  those  of  an  affectionate 
son  in  whom  indeed,  from  his  easy  compliance  with  her  wishes 
in  his  younger  years  one  might  suspect  some  weakness,  but 
whose  strength  of  character  is  displayed  at  every  turn  once  he 
himself  assumed  the  reins  of  government.  After  many  years 
of  ruling  however,  when  his  departure  on  the  Crusade  com- 
pelled him  to  be  absent  from  the  kingdom  it  was  to  her  he 
turned  again  to  act  as  his  representative  and  the  wisdom  of 
the  choice  no  one  can  question.  As  a  husband  Louis'  life  was 
a  model,  and  though  he  could  not  accomplish  the  impossible, 
and  was  not  able  to  keep  the  relations  of  his  mother  and  his 
wife  as  cordial  as  he  would  have  liked  them  to  be,  judging 
from  human  experience  generally  it  is  hard  to  think  this  consti- 
tutes any  serious  blot  on  his  fair  name.  As  a  father,  few  men 
have  ever  thought  less  of  material  advantages  for  their 
children,  or  more  of  the  necessity  for  having  them  realize  that 
happiness  in  life  does  not  consist  in  the  possession  of  many 
things,  but  rather  in  the  accomplishment  of  duty  and  in  the 
recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  giving  of  happiness  to  others 


290  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

constitutes  the  best  source  of  felicity  for  one's  self.  His  letters 
and  instructions  to  his  children,  as  preserved  for  us  by  Join- 
ville  and  other  contemporaries,  give  us  perhaps  the  most  tak- 
ing picture  of  the  man  that  we  have,  and  round  out  a  person- 
ality, which,  while  it  has  in  the  telling  French  phrase  "the  de- 
fects of  its  virtues,"  is  surely  one  of  the  most  beautiful  charac- 
ters that  has  ever  been  seen  upon  earth,  in  a  man  who  took 
an  active  and  extremely  important  part  in  the  great  events  of 
the  world  of  his  time. 

The  salient  points  of  his  character  are  his  devotion  to  the 
three  great  needs  of  humanity  as  they  present  themselves  in  his 
time.  He  made  it  the  aim  of  his  life  that  men  should  have 
justice,  and  education,  and  when  for  any  misfortune  they 
needed  it, — charity ;  and  every  portion  of  his  career  is  taken  up 
with  successful  achievement  in  these  great  departments  of 
social  action.  It  is  well  known  that  when  he  became  conscious 
that  the  judges  sometimes  abused  their  power  and  gave  sen- 
tences for  partial  reasons,  the  monarch  himself  took  up  the 
onerous  duty  of  hearing  appeals  and  succeeded  in  making  the 
judges  of  his  kingdom  realize,  that  only  the  strictest  justice 
would  save  them  from  the  king's  displeasure,  and  condign 
punishment.  For  an  unjust  judge  there  was  short  shrift.  The 
old  tree  at  Versailles,  under  which  he  used  to  hear  the  causes 
of  the  poor  who  appealed  to  him,  stood  for  many  centuries  as 
a  reminder  of  Louis'  precious  effort  to  make  the  dispensing  of 
justice  equal  to  all  men.  When  the  duty  of  hearing  appeals 
took  up  too  much  of  his  time  it  was  transferred  to  worthy 
shoulders,  and  so  the  important  phase  of  jurisprudence  in 
France  relating  to  appeals,  came  to  be  thoroughly  established 
as  a  part  of  the  organic  law  of  the  kingdom. 

As  regards  education,  too  much  can  not  be  said  of  Louis' 
influence.  It  is  to  him  more  than  to  anybody  else  that  the 
University  of  Paris  owes  the  success  it  achieved  as  a  great  in- 
stitution of  learning  at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
Had  the  monarch  been  opposed  to  the  spread  of  education  with 
any  idea  that  it  might  possibly  undermine  his  authority,  had  he 
even  been  indifferent  to  it,  Paris  would  not  have  come  to  be  the 
educational  center  of  the  world.  As  it  was,  Louis  not  only  en- 
couraged it  in  every  way,  but  also  acted  as  the  patron  of  great 


NOTRE   DAME    (PARIS) 


LOUIS  THE  MONARCH.  291 

subsidiary  institutions  which  were  to  add  to  its  prestige  and 
enhance  its  facilities.  Among  the  most  noteworthy  is  the  Sor- 
bonne.  La  Sainte  Chapelle  deserves  to  be  mentioned,  however, 
and  the  library  attached  to  it,  which  owed  its  foundation  and 
development  to  Louis,  were  important  factors  in  attracting  stu- 
dents to  Paris  and  in  furnishing  them  interestingly  suggestive 
material  for  thought  and  the  development  of  taste  during  their 
residence  there.  His  patronage  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  the 
encyclopedist,  was  but  a  further  manifestation  of  his  interest 
in  everything  educational.  His  benefactions  to  the  Hotel  Dieu 
must  be  considered  rather  under  the  head  of  charity,  and  yet 
they  also  serve  to  represent  his  encouragement  of  medical  edu- 
cation and  of  the  proper  care  for  the  poor  in  educated  hands. 

Voltaire,  to  whom  Louis'  character  as  a  supreme  believer 
in  revealed  religion  must  have  been  so  utterly  unsympathetic, 
and  whose  position  as  the  historical  symbol  of  all  that  Vol- 
taire most  held  in  antipathy  in  medievalism,  might  have  been 
expected  to  make  the  French  philosopher  avoid  mention  of  him 
since  he  could  not  condemn,  has  been  forced  into  some  striking 
utterances  in  praise  of  Louis,  one  of  which  we  quote : 

"Louis  IX  appeared  to  be  a  prince  destined  to  reform  Europe, 
if  she  could  have  been  reformed,  to  render  France  triumphant 
and  civilized,  and  to  be  in  all  things  a  pattern  for  men.  His 
piety  which  was  that  of  an  anchorite,  did  not  deprive  him  of 
any  kingly  virtue.  A  wise  economy  took  nothing  from  his 
liberality.  A  profound  policy  was  combined  with  strict  jus- 
tice and  he  is  perhaps  the  only  sovereign  who  is  entitled  to  this 
praise;  prudent  and  firm  in  counsel,  intrepid  without  rashness 
in  his  wars,  he  was  as  compassionate  as  if  he  had  always  been 
unhappy.  No  man  could  have  carried  virtue  further." 

Guizot,  the  French  statesman  and  historian,  whose  unbend- 
ing Calvinism  made  the  men  and  institutions  of  the  Middle 
Ages  almost  incomprehensible  to  him  from  their  Catholic  as- 
pects, has  much  of  good  to  say  of  Louis,  though  there  is  not 
wanting  rather  definite  evidence  of  the  reluctance  of  his  admir- 
ation : 

"The  world  has  seen  more  profound  politicians  on  the 
throne,  greater  generals,  men  of  more  mighty  and  brilliant 
intellect,  princes  who  have  exercised  a  more  powerful  influence 


292  GREATEST  Of  CENTURIES. 

over  later  generations  and  events  subsequent  to  their  own 
times ;  but  it  has  never  seen  such  a  king  as  this  St.  Louis,  never 
seen  a  man  possessing  sovereign  power  and  yet  not  contract- 
ing the  vices  and  passions  which  attend  it,  displaying  upon  the 
throne  in  such  a  high  degree  every  human  virtue  purified  and 
ennobled  by  Christian  faith.  St.  Louis  did  not  give  any  new  or 
personal  impulse  to  his  age;  he  did  not  strongly  influence  the 
nature  or  the  development  of  civilization  in  France;  whilst  he 
endeavored  to  reform  the  gravest  abuses  of  the  feudal  system 
by  the  introduction  of  justice  and  public  order,  he  did  not  en- 
deavor to  abolish  it  either  by  the  substitution  of  a  pure  mon- 
archy, or  by  setting  class  against  class  in  order  to  raise  the 
royal  authority  high  above  all.  He  was  neither  an  egotist  nor 
a  scheming  diplomatist;  he  was,  in  all  sincerity,  in  harmony 
with  his  age  and  sympathetic  alike  with  the  faith,  the  institu- 
tions, the  customs,  and  the  tastes  of  France  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century.  And  yet,  both  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  and  in  later 
times  St.  Louis  stands  apart  as  a  man  of  profoundly  original 
character,  an  isolated  figure  without  any  peer  among  his  con- 
temporaries or  his  successors.  As  far  as  it  was  possible  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  he  was  an  ideal  man,  king,  and  Christian." 

Guizot  goes  even  further  than  this  when  he  says,  "It  is  re- 
ported that  in  the  Seventeenth  Century,  during  the  brilliant 
reign  of  Louis  XIV.,  Montecuculli,  on  learning  of  the  death  of 
his  illustrious  rival,  Turenne,  said  to  his  officers,  'A  man  has 
died  to-day  who  did  honor  to  mankind/  St.  Louis  did  honor  to 
France,  to  royalty,  to  humanity,  and  to  Christianity.  This  was 
the  feeling  of  his  contemporaries,  and  after  six  centuries  it  is 
still  confirmed  by  the  judgment  of  the  historian." 

Of  Louis'  wonderful  influence  for  good  as  a  ruler  all  his- 
torians are  agreed  in  talking  in  the  highest  terms.  His  private 
life  however,  is  even  more  admirable  for  our  purpose  of  bring- 
ing out  the  greatness  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Of  course 
many  legends  and  myths  have  gathered  around  his  name,  but 
still  enough  remains  of  absolutely  trustworthy  tradition  and 
even  documentary  evidence,  to  make  it  very  clear  that  he  was 
a  man  among  men,  a  nobleman  of  nature's  making,  who  in  any 
position  of  life  would  have  acquitted  himself  with  a  perfection 
sure  to  make  his  life  worthy  of  admiration.  One  of  the  most 


LOUIS  THE  MONARCH.  293 

striking  traits  of  his  character  is  his  love  of  justice,  his  in- 
satiable desire  to  render  to  all  men  what  was  rightly  theirs. 
A  biographer  has  told  the  story  that  gives  the  most  telling 
proof  of  this  in  relating  the  solicitude  with  which  he  tried  to 
right  all  the  wrongs  not  only  of  his  own  reign,  but  of  those  of 
his  predecessors,  before  he  set  out  on  the  Crusade.  He  wished 
to  have  the  absolute  satisfaction  that  he,  nor  his,  owed  any  man 
any  reparation,  as  the  most  precious  treasure  he  could  take 
with  him  on  his  perilous  expedition.  He  wished  even  to  undo 
any  wrongs  that  might  have  been  done  in  his  name  though  he 
was  entirely  unconscious  of  them. 

"As  he  wished  to  be  in  a  state  of  grace  at  the  moment  of  de- 
parture, and  to  take  with  him  to  the  Holy  Land  a  quiet  con- 
science by  leaving  the  kingdom  in  as  happy  a  condition  as  possi- 
ble, he  resolved  to  carry  out  one  of  the  noblest  measures  ever 
undertaken  by  a  king.  By  his  order,  inquisitors  were  sent  into 
all  the  provinces  annexed  to  the  royal  dominion  since  the  ac- 
cession of  Philip  Augustus.  All  those  who  had  been  maltreated 
or  despoiled  by  the  bailiffs,  seneschals,  provosts,  sergeants,  and 
other  representatives  of  the  royal  authority,  came  to  declare 
their  wrongs  to  these  newly  appointed  judges,  and  to  demand 
the  reparation  which  was  due  to  them ;  the  number  was  great, 
since  for  forty  years  there  had  been  much  suffering  in  the 
country  districts  and  even  in  the  towns ....  The  royal  officers 
had  too  often  acted  as  if  they  were  in  a  conquered  country; 
they  believed  themselves  to  be  safe  from  observation,  so  that 
they  might  do  as  they  pleased.  The  people  had  much  to  en- 
dure during  these  forty  years,  and  it  was  a  noble  idea  to  make 
reparation  freely  and  with  elaborate  care.  No  prince  had  been 
known,  of  his  own  accord  and  at  his  own  cost,  to  redress  the 
wrongs  inflicted  on  the  people  during  the  reigns  of  his  father 
and  grandfather.  This  made  an  immense  impression,  which 
lasted  for  centuries.  Blanche's  son  was  not  merely  a  good  king, 
he  became  the  unrivalled  sovereign,  the  impeccable  judge,  the 
friend  and  consoler  of  his  subjects." 

It  is  no  wonder  that  so  inappeasable  a  lover  of  justice  should 
commend  that  virtue  above  all  others  to  his  son.  When  we 
read  his  letters  to  that  son  who  was  to  be  his  successor,  in 
the  light  of  Louis'  own  career,  we  appreciate  with  what  utter 


294  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

sincerity  they  were  written.  Louis  realized  that  simple  jus- 
tice between  men  would  undo  more  of  the  world's  wrongs  than 
most  of  the  vaunted  cures  for  social  ills,  which  are  only  too 
often  the  result  of  injustice. 

"Dear  son,"  he  writes  in  his  Instruction,  "if  you  come  to 
reign,  do  that  which  befits  a  king,  that  is,  be  so  just  as  to  devi- 
ate in  nothing  from  justice,  whatever  may  befall  you.  If  a  poor 
man  goes  to  law  with  one  who  is  rich,  support  the  poor  rather 
than  the  rich  man  until  you  know  the  truth,  and  when  the  truth 
is  known,  do  that  which  is  just.  And  if  it  happen  that  any  man 
has  a  dispute  with  yourself,  maintain  the  cause  of  your  adver- 
sary before  the  council  so  as  not  to  appear  partial  to  your  own 
cause,  until  the  truth  is  known.  Unless  you  do  this,  those  who 
are  of  the  council  may  fear  to  speak  against  you,  and  this 
ought  not  to  be. . .  .And  if  you  find  that  you  possess  anything 
unjustly  acquired,  either  in  your  time  or  in  that  of  your  prede- 
cessors, make  restitution  at  once,  however  great  its  value, 
either  in  land,  money,  or  any  other  thing.  . .  .If  the  matter  is 
doubtful  and  you  cannot  find  out  the  truth,  follow  the  advice 
of  trusty  men,  and  make  such  an  agreement  as  may  fully  de- 
liver your  soul  and  that  of  your  predecessors.  If  you  hear 
that  your  predecessors  have  made  restitution  of  anything,  take 
great  trouble  to  discover  if  anything  more  should  be  restored, 
and  if  you  find  that  this  is  the  case,  restore  it  at  once  so  as  to 
deliver  your  own  soul  and  that  of  your  predecessors." 

"The  education  of  his  children,  their  future  position  and 
well-being,  engrossed  the  attention  of  the  King  as  entirely, 
and  were  subjects  of  as  keen  an  interest,  as  if  he  had  been  a 
father  with  no  other  task  than  the  care  of  his  children.  After 
supper  they  followed  him  to  his  apartment,  where  he  made 
them  sit  around  him  for  a  time  whilst  he  instructed  them  in 
their  duty;  he  then  sent  them  to  bed.  He  would  direct  their 
attention  particularly  to  the  good  and  bad  actions  of  Princes 
He  used  to  visit  them  in  their  own  apartment  when  he  had 
any  leisure,  inquire  as  to  their  progress,  and  like  a  second 
Tobias,  give  them  excellent  instruction.  . .  .On  Maundy  Thurs- 
day, he  and  his  children  used  to  wash  the  feet  of  a  dozen  poor 
persons,  give  them  large  alms,  and  afterward  wait  upon  them 
whilst  they  dined.  The  King  together  with  his  son-in-law 


LOUIS  THE  MONARCH.  295 

King  Thibault,  whom  he  loved  and  looked  upon  as  his  own 
son,  carried  the  first  poor  man  to  the  hospital  of  Compeigne, 
and  his  two  oldest  sons,  Louis  and  Philippe,  carried  the  second. 
They  were  accustomed  to  act  with  him  in  all  things,  showing 
him  great  reverence,  and  he  desired  that  they  and  Thibault 
should  also  obey  him  implicitly  in  everything  that  he  com- 
manded." 

Anyone  who  still  retains  any  trace  of  the  old-fashioned 
notion,  which  used  to  be  unfortunately  a  commonplace  among 
English  speaking  people,  that  the  medieval  Monks  were  un- 
worthy of  their  great  calling,  and  that  the  monasteries  were 
the  homes  of  lazy,  fat-witted  men  whose  only  object  in  tak- 
ing up  the  life  was  to  secure  an  easy  means  of  livelihood,  will 
be  thoroughly  undeceived,  if  he  but  read  with  some  attention 
the  stories  of  Louis'  relations  to  the  monasteries.  In  all  his 
journeys  he  stopped  in  them,  he  always  asked  to  see  their  libra- 
ries, he  insisted  on  not  being  treated  better  than  the  community 
and  in  every  way  he  tried  to  show  his  esteem  for  them.  There 
is  a  story  which  may  or  may  not  be  true  in  the  "Little  Flowers 
of  St.  Francis,"  which  comes  from  almost  a  contemporary 
source,  however,  that  once  on  his  travels  he  called  on  Brother 
Giles,  the  famous  simple-minded  companion  of  St.  Francis,  of 
whom  so  many  delightfully  humorous  stories  are  told.  Brother 
Giles  received  his  affectionate  greeting  but  said  never  a  word 
in  return.  After  the  first  words  the  King  himself  said  noth- 
ing, but  both  sat  and  communed  in  silence  for  some  time,  and 
then  the  King  departed  apparently  well-pleased  with  his  visit. 
Needless  to  say  when  Brother  Giles  told  the  story  of  the  King 
of  France  having  called  on  him  there  was  a  commotion  in  the 
community.  But  by  this  time  the  King  was  far  distant  on  his 
way. 

Indeed  Louis  took  so  many  opportunities  to  stop  in  monas- 
teries and  follow  monastic  regulations  as  to  prayer  and  the 
taking  of  meals  while  there,  that  he  quite  disgusted  some  of  the 
members  of  his  retinue  who  were  most  with  him.  One  of  the 
ladies  of  the  court  in  her  impatience  at  him  for  this,  is  once 
said  to  have  remarked  under  such  indiscreet  circumstances  that 
it  was  reported  to  Louis,  that  she  wished  they  had  a  man  and 
not  a  monk  for  King.  Louis  is  said  to  have  asked  her  very 


296  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

gently  if  she  would  prefer  that  he  spend  most  of  his  time  in 
sport  and  in  excesses  of  various  kinds.  Even  such  remarks, 
however,  had  no  effect  in  turning  him  from  his  purpose  to  live 
as  simply  and  as  beneficently  for  others  as  possible.  His  genuine 
appreciation  of  the  monks  must  be  recognized  from  his  wishes 
with  regard  to  his  children.  On  the  other  hand  his  readiness  to 
secure  their  happiness  as  far  as  possible  in  the  way  they  wished 
for  themselves  shows  the  tenderness  of  his  fatherly  heart.  A 
modern  biographer  has  said  of  him : — 

"He  was  very  anxious  that  his  three  children  born  in  the 
East  during  the  Crusade — Jean  Tristan,  Pierre,  and  Blanche — 
and  even  his  eldest  daughter  Isabella,  should  enter  the  monas- 
tic life,  which  he  looked  upon  as  the  most  likely  to  insure  their 
salvation;  he  frequently  exhorted  them  to  take  this  step,  writ- 
ing letters  of  the  greatest  tenderness  and  piety,  especially  to 
his  daughter  Isabella;  but,  as  they  did  not  show  any  taste  for 
it,  he  did  not  attempt  to  force  their  inclinations.  Thenceforth, 
he  busied  himself  in  making  suitable  marriages  for  them,  and 
establishing  them  according  to  their  rank ;  at  the  same  time  he 
gave  them  the  most  judicious  advice  as  to  their  conduct  and 
actions  in  the  world  upon  which  they  were  entering.  When 
he  was  before  Tunis  and  found  that  he  was  sick  unto  death, 
he  gave  the  instructions  which  he  had  written  out  in  French 
with  his  own  hand  to  his  eldest  son,  Philip.  They  are  models 
of  virtue,  wisdom  and  paternal  tenderness,  worthy  of  a  King 
and  a  Christian." 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  St.  Louis'  life  was 
his  treatment  of  the  poor.  He  used  literally  to  recall  the  fact 
that  they  must  stand  to  him  in  the  place  of  God.  "Whatever 
you  do  to  the  least  of  these  you  do  even  unto  me"  was  a  fav- 
orite expression  frequently  in  his  mouth.  He  waited  on  them 
personally  and  no  matter  how  revolting  their  appearance  would 
not  be  deterred  from  this  personal  service.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand that  his  courtiers  did  not  sympathize  with  this  state  of 
mind,  though  Louis  used  to  encourage  them  not  only  by  his 
example  but  by  personal  persuasion.  Every  Holy  Thursday 
he  used  to  wash  the  feet  of  twelve  poor  people  at  a  public  cere- 
monial, in  honor  of  the  washing  of  the  feet  of  the  Apostles 
by  Christ.  It  must  not  be  thought  moreover,  that  such  a  pro- 


APOSTLE  (LA  STE.  CHAPELLE,  PARIS) 


LOUIS  THE  MONARCH.  297 

ceeding  was  perhaps  less  repugnant  to  the  feelings  of  the  men 
of  that  time  than  they  are  to  the  present  generation.  It  might 
be  considered  that  the  general  paucity  of  means  for  maintain- 
ing personal  cleanliness  in  medieval  times  would  make  the  pro- 
cedure less  disgusting.  As  a  proof  of  the  contrary  of  this  we 
have  the  words  of  Joinville  who  tells  of  the  following  conver- 
sation : — 

"Many  a  time,"  says  Joinville,  "I  have  seen  him  cut  their 
bread  for  them,  and  pour  out  their  drink.  One  day  he  asked 
rne  if  I  washed  the  feet  of  the  poor  on  Maundy  Thursday. 
"Sire,"  I  answered,  "What,  the  feet  of  those  dirty  wretches ! 
No  indeed,  I  shall  never  wash  them."  "Truly,"  replied  the 
King,  "you  have  spoken  ill,  for  you  ought  not  to  despise  that 
which  God  intended  for  your  instruction.  I  pray  you,  therefore, 
first  of  all  for  the  love  of  God,  and  then  by  your  love  towards 
me,  that  you  make  a  habit  of  washing  their  feet." 

Even  more  striking  than  this  however,  was  his  attitude 
toward  the  lepers  of  the  time.  These  poor  creatures  were  com- 
pelled to  live  apart  from  the  population  and  were  not  allowed 
to  approach  healthy  individuals.  They  were  of  exceeding  in- 
terest to  Louis  however,  who  took  every  opportunity  to  miti- 
gate the  trials  and  hardships  of  their  existence.  Whenever  he 
met  them  on  his  journeys  he  insisted  on  abundant  alms  being 
given  them,  and  gave  orders  that  every  possible  provision  tor 
their  welfare,  consonant  with  the  care  that  their  affection 
should  not  be  permitted  to  spread,  be  made  for  them.  Over  and 
over  again  he  greeted  them  as  his  brothers  and  when  his  retinue 
feared  to  approach  them,  would  himself  go  to  them,  in  order  to 
console  them  by  his  words  and  his  exhibition  of  personal  inter- 
est. There  is  an  incident  told  of  his  having  on  one  occasion, 
when  a  muddy  stream  intervened  between  him  and  some  lep- 
ers, forded  the  stream  alone  in  order  to  get  to  them,  and  neither 
any  personal  fear  of  contagion  nor  any  natural  repugnance 
was  permitted  to  deter  him  from  this  sublime  work  of  charity. 
It  is  no  wonder  that  his  people  proclaimed  him  a  saint,  that  is 
"one  who  thinks  first  of  others  and  only  second  of  himself," 
even  during  his  lifetime. 

The  only  supposed  blot  upon  Louis'  character  is  the  denuncia- 
tion by  certain  modern  writers  of  what  they  call  the  fanaticism, 


298  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

which  prompted  him  to  go  on  the  Crusades  instead  of  remain- 
ing at  home  properly  to  care  for  his  people.  The  opinion  with 
regard  to  the  place  that  must  be  assigned  to  the  Crusades  as 
a  factor  in  history  and  national  as  well  as  European  develop- 
ment, has  changed  very  much  in  recent  years.  Formerly  it  was 
the  custom  almost  entirely  to  condemn  them  and  to  look  upon 
them  as  a  serious  mistake.  Such  ideas  however,  are  only  enter- 
tained by  those  who  do  not  realize  the  conditions  under  which 
they  were  undertaken  or  the  important  results  which  flowed 
from  them.  Bishop  Stubbs  in  his  lectures  on  Medieval  and 
Modern  History,  delivered  while  he  was  professor  of  History 
at  Oxford,  has  been  at  some  pains  to  correct  this  false  notion, 
and  his  passage  constitutes  one  of  the  best  apologies  for  Louis' 
interest  in  the  Crusades  which  could  be  written.  He  said :-» • 

"The  Crusades  are  not,  in  my  mind,  either  the  popular  de- 
lusions that  our  cheap  literature  has  determined  them  to  be,  nor 
papal  conspiracies  against  kings  and  peoples,  as  they  appear 
to  Protestant  controversialists ;  nor  the  savage  outbreak  of  ex- 
piring barbarism,  thirsting  for  blood  and  plunder,  nor  volcanic 
explosions  of  religious  intolerance.  I  believe  them  to  have  been 
in  their  deep  sources,  and  in  the  minds  of  their  best  champions, 
and  in  the  main  tendency  of  their  results,  capable  of  ample 
justification.  They  were  the  first  great  effort  of  medieval  life 
to  go  beyond  the  pursuit  of  selfish  and  isolated  ambitions ;  they 
were  the  trial-feat  of  the  young  world,  essaying  to  use,  to  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  benefit  of  man,  the  arms  of  its  new 
knighthood.  That  they  failed  in  their  direct  object  is  only 
what  may  be  alleged  against  almost  every  great  design  which 
the  great  disposer  of  events  has  moulded  to  help  the  world's 
progress ;  for  the  world  has  grown  wise  from  the  experience 
of  failure,  rather  than  by  the  winning  of  high  aims.  That  the 
good  they  did  was  largely  leavened  with  evil  may  be  said  of 
every  war  that  has  ever  been  waged;  that  bad  men  rose  by 
them  while  good  men  fell,  is  and  must  be  true,  wherever  and 
whenever  the  race  is  to  the  swift  and  the  battle  to  the  strong. 
But  that  in  the  end  they  were  a  benefit  to  the  world  no  one 
who  reads  can  doubt;  and  that  in  their  course  they  brought 
out  a  love  for  all  that  is  heroic  in  human  nature,  the  love  of 
freedom,  the  honor  of  prowess,  sympathy  with  sorrow,  perse-* 


LOUIS  THE  MONARCH.  299 

verance  to  the  last,  the  chronicles  of  the  age  abundantly  prove ; 
proving,  moreover,  that  it  was  by  the  experience  of  these  times 
that  the  forms  of  those  virtues  were  realized  and  presented  to 
posterity."* 

With  the  stigma  of  supposed  imprudence  or  foolhardiness 
for  having  gone  on  the  Crusade  turned  into  a  new  cause  for 
honor,  Louis  must  be  considered  as  probably  the  greatest  mon- 
arch who  ever  occupied  an  important  throne.  Instead  of  being 
surprised  that  such  a  monarch  should  have  come  in  the  heart 
of  the  Middle  Ages  and  during  a  century  so  distant  as  the 
Thirteenth,  readers  must  now  be  ready  to  appreciate  to  some 
degree  at  least  the  fact,  that  his  environment  instead  of  being 
a  hindrance  in  any  sense  of  the  word  to  the  development  of 
Louis'  greatness,  should  rather  be  considered  as  one  of  the 
principal  sources  of  it.  Louis'  character  was  representative 
of  the  men  of  that  time  and  exhibits  in  their  most  striking  form 
the  qualities  that  were  set  up  as  ideals  in  that  period.  If  the 
century  had  produced  nothing  else  but  Louis,  it  would  have  to 
be  considered  as  a  great  epoch  in  history,  for  he  was  no  mere 
accident  but  typically  a  son  of  his  age.  If  this  is  but  properly 
appreciated  the  true  significance  not  only  of  Louis'  life  but  the 
period  in  which  he  lived  will  be  better  understood  than  would 
be  possible  by  any  other  means.  Those  who  want  to  know 
the  men  of  this  wonderful  century  as  they  actually  were  should 
study  Louis'  life  in  detail,  for  we  have  been  only  able  to  hint 
at  its  most  striking  characteristics. 

*Stubbs,  "  Seventeen  Lectures  on  Medieval  and  Modern  History," 
p.  180. 


DECORATION   THIRTEENTH   CENTURY  MS. 


300  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XIX 

DANTE  THE  POET. 


It  is  only  too  often  the  custom  to  talk  of  Dante  as  a  solitary 
phenomenon  in  his  time.  Even  Carlyle  who  knew  well  and 
properly  appreciated  many  things  in  medieval  life  and  letters 
and  especially  in  the  literary  productions  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  said,  that  in  Dante  "ten  silent  centuries  found  a  voice.'' 
Anyone  who  has  followed  what  we  have  had  to  say  with  regard 
to  the  Thirteenth  Century  will  no  longer  think  of  Dante  as 
standing  alone,  but  will  readily  appreciate  that  he  is  only  the  fit- 
ting culmination  of  a  great  literary  era.  After  having  gone  over 
even  as  hurriedly  as  has  been  necessary  in  our  brief  space,  what 
was  accomplished  in  every  country  of  Europe  in  literature  that 
was  destined  to  live  not  only  because  of  the  greatness  of  the 
thoughts,  but  also  for  the  ultimateness  of  its  expression,  we 
should  expect  some  surpassing  literary  genius  at  the  end  of  the 
period.  It  seems  almost  inevitable  indeed  that  a  supreme  poet, 
whose  name  stands  above  all  others  but  one  or  two  at  the 
most  in  the  whole  history  of  the  race,  should  have  lived  in 
the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  should  have  summed  up  effectually 
in  himself  all  the  greatness  of  the  century  and  enshrined  its 
thoughts  in  undying  verse  for  all  future  generations. 

When  Dante  himself  dares  to  place  his  name  with  those  of 
the  men  whom  he  considered  the  five  greatest  poets  of  all  time, 
it  seems  sublimest  egotism.  At  first  thought  many  will  at  once 
conclude  that  his  reason  for  so  doing  was,  that  in  the  unlet- 
tered times  his  critical  faculty  was  not  well  developed  and  as 
he  knew  that  his  work  far  surpassed  that  of  his  contempo- 
raries, he  could  scarcely  help  but  conclude  that  his  place  must 
be  among  the  great  poets.  Any  such  thought  however,  is  en- 
tirely due  to  lack  of  knowledge  of  the  conditions  of  Dante's 
life  and  education.  He  had  been  in  the  universities  of  Italy, 
and  in  his  exile  had  visited  Paris  and  probably  also  Oxford. 
He  knew  the  poets  of  his  country  well.  He  appreciated  them 


DANTE  (GIOTTO) 


DANTE  THE  POET.  301 

highly.  It  was  the  consciousness  of  genius  that  made  him 
place  himself  so*  high  and  not  any  faulty  comparison  with 
others.  Succeeding  generations  have  set  him  even  higher  than 
the  place  chosen  by  himself  and  now  we  breathe  his  name  only 
with  those  of  Homer  and  Shakespeare,  considering  that  these 
three  sublime  immortals  are  so  far  above  all  other  poets  that 
there  is  scarcely  a  second  to  them. 

Dante  is  the  most  universal  of  poets.  He  has  won  recogni- 
tion from  all  nations,  and  he  has  been  the  favorite  reading  of 
the  most  diverse  times  and  conditions  of  men.  From  the 
very  beginning  he  has  been  appreciated,  and  even  before  his 
death  men  had  begun  to  realize  something  of  the  supremacy 
of  his  greatness.  Commentaries  on  his  works  that  have  been 
preserved  down  to  our  own  day  were  written  almost  during 
his  lifetime.  Only  supreme  interest  could  have  tempted  men 
to  multiply  these  by  the  hard  labor  of  patient  handwriting. 
Petrarch  who  as  a  young  man,  was  his  contemporary,  recog- 
nized him  as  the  Prince  of  Italian  poets  who  had  composed  in 
their  common  tongue,  and  even  was  tempted  to  say  that  the 
subtle  and  profound  conceptions  of  the  Commedia  could  not 
have  been  written  without  the  special  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
Boccaccio  was  wont  to  speak  of  him  as  the  Divine  Poet,  and 
tells  us  that  he  had  learned  that  Petrarch  deliberately  held  aloof 
from  the  Commedia,  through  fear  of  losing  his  originality  if 
he  came  under  the  spell  of  so  great  a  master. 

Very  few  realize  how  great  a  poet  Dante  must  be  considered 
even  if  only  the  effusions  of  his  younger  years  were  to  be 
taken  as  the  standard  of  his  poetical  ability.  Some  of  his  son- 
nets are  as  beautiful  of  their  kind  as  are  to  be  found  in  this 
form  of  poetry.  His  description  of  his  lady-love  is  famous 
among  sonnets  of  lovers  and  may  only  be  compared  with  some 
cf  the  Sonnets  from  the  Portuguese  in  our  own  day,  or  with  one 
or  two  of  Camoens'  original  sonnets  in  the  Portuguese,  for 
lofty  praise  of  the  beloved  in  worthy  numbers.  After  read- 
ing Dante's  sonnets  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  a  half  century 
later  Petrarch  was  able  to  raise  the  sonnet  form  to  an  excellence 
that  was  never  to  be  surpassed.  With  a  beginning  like  this  it 
is  no  wonder  that  the  sonnet  became  so  popular  in  Europe 
during  the  next  three  centuries,  and  that  every  young  poet. 


302  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

down  to  Shakespeare's  time,  had  an  attack  of  sonneteering 
just  as  he  might  have  had  an  attack  of  the  measles.  The  first 
one  of  a  pair  of  sonnets  that  are  considered  supreme  in  their 
class  deserves  a  place  here  as  an  example  of  Dante's  poetic  fac- 
ulty in  this  form,  for  which  he  is  so  much  less  known  than  he 
ought  to  be. 

He  sees  completely  fullest  bliss  abound 

Who  among  ladies  sees  my  Lady's  face ; 
Those  that  with  her  do  go  are  surely  bound 

To  give  God  thanks  for  such  exceeding  grace. 
And  in  her  beauty  such  strange  might  is  found, 

That  envy  finds  in  other  hearts  no  place; 
So  she  makes  them  walk  with  her,  clothed  all  round 

With  love  and  faith  and  courteous  gentleness. 
The  sight  of  her  makes  all  things  lowly  be ; 

Nor  of  herself  alone  she  gives  delight, 
But  each  through  her  receiveth  honor  due. 

And  in  her  acts  is  such  great  courtesy, 
That  none  can  recollect  that  wondrous  sight, 

Who  sighs  not  for  it  in  Love's  sweetness  true. 

It  will  be  noted  that  Dante  has  nothing  to  say  of  the  personal 
appearance  of  his  beloved.  This  is  "true,  however,  of  the 
whole  series  of  poems  to  and  about  her.  He  never  seems  to 
have  thought  for  a  moment  of  her  physical  qualities.  What  he 
finds  worthy  to  praise  is  her  goodness  which  shines  out  from 
her  features  so  that  everyone  rejoices  in  it,  while  a  sweetness 
fills  the  heart  as  if  a  heavenly  visitor  had  come.  For  him  her 
supreme  quality  is  that,  with  all  her  beauty,  envy  finds  no  place 
in  others'  hearts  because  she  is  so  clothed  around  with  love 
and  faith  and  courteous  gentleness.  It  has  often  been  said  that 
Shakespeare  did  not  describe  the  physical  appearances  of  his 
heroines  because  he  realized  that  this  meant  very  little,  but 
then  Shakespeare  had  to  write  for  the  stage  and  realized  that 
blondes  and  brunettes,  especially  in  the  olden  time,  could  not  be 
made  to  order  and  that  it  was  better  to  leave  the  heroine's 
physical  appearance  rather  vague.  It  would  be  expected,  how- 
ever, that  Dante,  with  his  Southern  temperament,  would  have 
dwelt  on  the  physical  perfections  of  his  fair.  The  next  son- 


DANTE  THE  POET.  303 

net,  however,  of  the  best  known  group  emphasizes  his  abstrac- 
tion of  all  physical  influence  in  the  matter  and  insists  on  her 
goodness  and  the  womanly  beauty  of  her  character.  It  will 
be  found  in  our  chapter  on  Women  of  the  Century. 

In  his  earlier  years  Dante  considered  himself  one  of  the 
Troubadours,  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  if  he  had  never 
written  the  Divine  Comedy,  he  still  would  have  been  remem- 
bered as  one  of  the  great  poets  who  wrote  of  love  in  this  Thir- 
teenth Century.  Not  only  does  he  deserve  a  place  among  the 
greatest  of  the  Minnesingers,  the  Trouveres,  and  the  Trouba- 
dours, but  he  is  perhaps  the  greatest  of  them.  That  he  should 
have  sung  as  he  did  at  the  end  of  the  century  only  shows  that 
he  was  in  the  stream  of  literary  evolution  and  not  being  merely 
carried  idly  along,  but  helping  to  guide  it  into  ever  fairer  chan- 
nels. Dante's  minor  poems  would  have  made  enduring  fame 
for  any  poet  of  less  genius  than  himself.  His  prose  works 
deserve  to  be  read  by  anyone  who  wishes  to  know  the  charac- 
ter of  this  greatest  of  poets,  and  also  to  appreciate  what  the 
educational  environment  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  succeeded 
in  making  out  of  good  intellectual  material  when  presented 
to  it.  Dante's  works  are  the  real  treasury  of  information  of 
the  most  precious  kind  with  regard  to  the  century,  since  they 
provide  the  proper  standpoint  from  which  to  view  all  that  it 
accomplished. 

While  Dante  was  a  supreme  singer  among  the  poets  of  a 
great  song  time,  it  was  only  natural,  in  the  light  of  what  we 
know  about  the  literary  product  of  the  rest  of  this  century, 
that  he  should  have  put  Into  epic  form  the  supreme  product 
of  his  genius.  With  the  great  national  epics  in  every  country 
of  Europe — the  Cid,  the  Arthur  Legends,  and  the  Nibelungen, 
at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  and  the  epical  poems  of  the 
Meistersingers  during  its  first  half,  it  is  not  surprising,  but 
on  the  contrary  rather  what  might  have  been  confidently  looked 
for,  that  there  should  have  arisen  a  great  national  epic  in  Italy 
before  the  end  of  the  century.  The  Gothic  art  movement  spread 
through  all  these  countries,  and  so  did  the  wind  of  the  spirit 
of  esthetic  accomplishment  which  blew  the  flame  of  national 
literature  in  each  country  into  a  mighty  blaze,  that  not  only  was 


304  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

never  to  be  extinguished,  but  was  to  be  a  beacon  light  in  the 
realm  of  national  literatures  forever  after. 

We  have  already  said  a  word  of  the  well-known  contempo- 
rary admiration  for  the  poet  but  it  should  be  realized  that  due 
appreciation  of  Dante  continued  in  Italy  during  all  the  time 
when  Italian  art  and  literature  was  at  its  highest.  It  dwindled 
only  at  periods  of  decadence  and  lack  of  taste.  Cornelius'  law 
with  regard  to  Dante's  influence  on  art  is  very  well  known. 
Italian  art  according  to  him,  has  been  strong  and  vigorous 
just  in  proportion  as  it  has  worked  under  Dante's  influence, 
while  it  became  weak  and  sensuous  as  that  influence  declined. 
This  has  held  true  from  the  very  beginning  and  has  been  as 
true  for  literature  as  for  art.  When  the  Italians  became  in- 
terested in  trivialities  and  gave  themselves  up  to  weak  imita- 
tions of  the  classics,  or  to  pastoral  poetry  that  was  not  a  real 
expression  of  feeling  but  a  passing  fancy  of  literary  folk,  then 
Dante  was  for  a  time  in  obscurity.  Even  at  the  height  of  the 
Renaissance,  however,  when  Greek  was  at  the  acme  of  its  in- 
terest and  the  classics  occupied  so  much  attention  that  Dante 
might  be  expected  to  be  eclipsed,  the  great  thinkers  and  critics 
of  the  time  still  worshipped  at  the  shrine  of  their  great  master 
of  Italian  verse.  The  best  proof  of  this  is  to  be  found  in 
Michael  Angelo's  famous  sonnets  in  praise  of  Dante,  the  sec- 
ond of  which  would  seem  to  exhaust  all  that  can  be  said  in 
praise  of  a  brother  poet. 
Into  the  dark  abyss  he  made  his  way; 

Both  nether  worlds  he  saw,  and  in  the  might 

Of  his  great  soul  beheld  God's  splendour  bright, 
And  gave  to  us  on  earth  true  light  of  day : 
Star  of  supremest  worth  with  its  clear  ray, 

Heaven's  secrets  he  revealed  to  us  through  our  dim  sight, 

And  had  for  guerdon  what  the  base  world's  spite 
Oft  gives  to  souls  that  noblest  grace  display, 
Full  ill  was  Dante's  life-work  understood, 

His  purpose  high,  by  that  ungrateful  state, 
That  welcomed  all  with  kindness  but  the  good. 

Would  I  were  such,  to  bear  like  evil  fate, 
To  taste  his  exile,  share  his  lofty  mood. 

For  this  I'd  gladly  give  all  earth  calls  great. 


DANTE  THE  POET.  305 

In  the  first  of  this  pair  of  sonnets,  however,  Michael  Angelo 
gave  if  possible  even  higher  praise  than  this.  It  will  be  re- 
called that  he  himself,  besides  being  the  greatest  of  sculptors 
and  one  of  the  greatest  of  painters  and  architects  in  a  wonder- 
fully productive  period,  was  also  a  very  great  poet.  These 
sonnets  to  Dante,  the  one  to  his  crucifix,  and  one  to  Vittoria 
Colonna,  are  the  best  proof  of  this.  He  knew  how  to  chisel 
thoughts  into  wonderfully  suitable  words  quite  as  well  as  mar- 
ble into  the  beautiful  forms  that  grew  under  his  hands.  With 
all  his  greatness,  and  he  must  have  been  conscious  of  it,  he 
thinks  that  he  would  be  perfectly  willing  to  give  up  all  that 
earth  calls  great,  simply  to  share  Dante's  lofty  mood  even  in 
his  exile.  No  greater  tribute  has  ever  been  paid  by  one  poet 
to  another  than  this,  and  Michael  Angelo's  genius  was  above 
all  critical,  never  thoughtlessly  laudatory.  As  emphasizing  the 
highest  enlightened  taste  of  a  great  epoch  this  has  seemed  to 
deserve  a  place  here  also. 

What  should  be  said  of  him  speech  may  not  tell ; 

His  splendor  is  too  great  for  men's  dim  sight; 

And  easier  'twere  to  blame  his  foes  aright 
Than  for  his  poorest  gifts  to  praise  him  well. 
He  tracked  the  path  that  leads  to  depths  of  Hell 

To  teach  us  wisdom,  scaled  the  eternal  height, 

And  heaven  with  open  gates  did  him  invite, 
Who  in  his  own  loved  city  might  not  dwell. 
Ungrateful  country  step-dame  of  his  fate, 

To  her  own  loss :  full  proof  we  have  in  this 
That  souls  most  perfect  bear  the  greatest  woe. 
Of  thousand  things  suffice  in  this  to  state : 

No  exile  ever  was  unjust  as  his, 
Nor  did  the  world  his  equal  ever  know. 

In  England,  in  spite  of  distance  of  country,  race  and  lan- 
guage, the  appreciation  of  Dante  began  very  early.  Read- 
ers of  Chaucer  know  the  great  Italian  as  the  favorite  poet 
of  the  Father  of  English  poetry,  and  over  and  over  again  he 
has  expressed  the  feeling  of  how  much  greater  than  anything 
he  could  hope  to  do  was  Dante's  accomplishment.  Readers 
will  remember  how  Chaucer  feels  unable  to  tell  the  story  of 


306  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Ugolino  and  his  starving  sons  in  the  Hunger  Tower,  and  refers 
those  interested  in  the  conclusion  of  the  tale  to  Dante.  After 
the  religious  revolt  of  the  early  Sixteenth  Century  Dante  was 
lost  sight  of  to  a  great  extent.  His  temper  was  too  Catholic 
to  be  appreciated  by  Puritan  England,  and  the  Elizabethans 
were  too  much  occupied  with  their  own  creation  of  a  great 
national  literature,  to  have  any  time  for  appreciation  of  a  for- 
eigner so  different  in  spirit  from  their  times.  With  the  coming 
of  the  Oxford  Movement,  however,  Dante  at  once  sprang  into 
favor,  and  a  number  of  important  critical  appreciations  of  him 
reintroduced  him  to  a  wide  reading  public  in  England,  most  of 
whom  were  among  the  most  cultured  of  the  island.  This  re- 
newed interest  in  Dante  gave  rise  to  some  of  the  best  critical 
appreciations  in  any  language.  Dean  Church's  famous  essay 
is  the  classic  English  monograph  on  Dante,  and  its  opening 
paragraph  sounds  the  keynote  of  critical  opinion  among  Eng- 
lish speaking  people. 

"The  Divina  Commedia  is  one  of  the  landmarks  of  history. 
More  than  a  magnificent  poem,  more  than  the  beginning  of  a 
language  and  the  opening  of  a  national  literature,  more  than  the 
inspirer  of  art  and  the  glory  of  a  great  people,  it  is  one  of 
those  rare  and  solemn  monuments  of  the  mind's  power  which 
measure  and  test  what  it  can  reach  to,  which  rise  up  inefface- 
ably  and  forever  as  time  goes  on,  marking  out  its  advance  by 
grander  divisions  than  its  centuries,  and  adopted  as  epochs  by 
the  consent  of  all  who  come  after.  It  stands  with  the  Iliad 
and  Shakespeare's  Plays,  with  the  writings  of  Aristotle  and 
Plato,  with  the  Novum  Organon  and  the  Principia,  with 
Justinian's  Code,  with  the  Parthenon  and  St.  Peter's.  It  is  the 
first  Christian  Poem,  and  it  opens  European  literature  as  the 
Iliad  did  that  of  Greece  and  Rome.  And,  like  the  Iliad,  it  has 
never  become  out  of  date;  it  accompanies  in  undiminished 
freshness  the  literature  which  it  began." 

No  better  introduction  to  Dante  could  be  obtained  than  this 
from  Dean  Church.  Those  who  have  found  it  difficult  to  get 
interested  in  the  great  Florentine  poet,  and  who  have  been 
prone  to  think  that  perhaps  the  pretended  liking  for  him  on  the 
part  of  many  people  was  an  affectation  rather  than  a  sincere 
expression  of  opinion,  should  read  this  essay  and  learn  some- 


TORRE    DEL    FAME    (DANTE,    PISA) 


PALAZZO   PRETOU10    (TODI) 


DANTE  THE  POET.  307 

thing  of  the  wealth  of  sympathy  there  is  in  Dante  for  even  the 
man  of  these  modern  times.  Our  Thirteenth  Century  poet  is 
not  easy  to  read  but  there  is  probably  no  reading  in  all  the 
world  that  brings  with  it  so  much  of  intellectual  satisfaction,  * 
so  much  of  awakening  of  the  best  feelings  in  man,  so  many 
glimpses  into  the  depths  of  his  being,  as  some  lines  from  Dante 
pondered  under  favorable  circumstances?)  Like  one  of  these 
Gothic  cathedrals  of  the  olden  times  he  never  grows  old,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  every  favorite  passage  seems  to  have  a  new 
message  for  each  mood  of  the  reader.  This  is  particularly  true 
for  the  spiritual  side  of  man's  being  as  has  been  pointed  out 
by  Dean  Church  in  a  well-known  passage  toward  the  end  of  his 
essay. 

"Those  who  know  the  Divina  Gommedia  best  will  best  know 
how  hard  it  is  to  be  the  interpreter  of  such  a  mind ;  but  they 
will  sympathize  with  the  wish  to  call  attention  to  it.  They 
know,  and  would  wish  others  also  to  know,  not  by  hearsay, 
but  by  experience,  the  power  of  that  wonderful  poem.  They 
know  its  austere  yet  submitting  beauty ;  they  know  what  force 
there  is  in  its  free  and  earnest  and  solemn  verse  to  strengthen, 
to  tranquillize,  to  console.  It  is  a  small  thing  that  it  has  the 
secret  of  Nature  and  Man ;  that  a  few  keen  words  have  opened 
their  eyes  to  new  sights  in  earth,  and  sea,  and  sky ;  have  taught 
them  new  mysteries  of  sound ;  have  made  them  recognize,  in 
distinct  image  of  thought,  fugitive  feelings,  or  their  unheeded 
expression,  by  look,  or  gesture,  or  motion ;  that  it  has  enriched 
the  public  and  collective  memory  of  society  with  new  instances, 
never  to  be  lost,  of  human  feeling  and  fortune;  has  charmed 
mind  and  ear  by  the  music  of  its  stately  march,  and  the  variety 
and  completeness  of  its  plan.  But  besides  this,  they  know  how 
often  its  seriousness  has  put  to  shame  their  trifling,  its  mag- 
nanimity their  faint-heartedness,  its  living  energy  their  indo- 
lence, its  stern  and  sad  grandeur  rebuked  low  thoughts,  its 
thrilling  tenderness  overcome  sullenness  and  assuaged  dis- 
tress, its  strong  faith  quelled  despair,  and  soothed  perplexity, 
its  vast  grasp  imparted  the  sense  of  harmony  to  the  view  of 
clashing  truth.  They  know  how  often  they  have  found  in 
times  of  trouble,  if  not  light,  at  least  that  deep  sense  of  reality, 
permanent  though  unseen,  which  is  more  than  light  can  al- 


308  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ways  give — in  the  view  which  it  has  suggested  to  them  of  the 
judgments  and  love  of  God." 

As  might  have  been  expected  from  the  fact  of  Dante's  Eng- 
lish popularity  paralleling  the  Oxford  Movement,  both  the 
great  English  Cardinals  who  were  such  prominent  agents  in 
that  movement,  looked  upon  him  as  a  favorite  author.  Both 
of  them  have  given  him  precious  tributes.  Newman's  lofty 
compliment  was  the  flattery  of  imitation  when  he  wrote  the 
Dream  of  Gerontius,  that  poem  for  poets  which  has  told  the 
men  of  our  generation  more  about  the  immediate  hereafter 
than  anything  written  in  these  latter  centuries.  No  poet  of  the 
intervening  period,  or  of  any  other  time,  has  so  satisfactorily 
presented  the  after  world  as  these  writers  so  distant  in  time, 
so  different  in  environment, — the  one  an  Italian  of  the  Thir- 
teenth, the  other  an  Englishman  of  the  Nineteenth  Century. 

Cardinal  Manning's  tribute  was  much  more  formal  though 
not  less  glorious.  It  occurs  in  the  introduction  to  Father 
Bowden's  English  edition  of  the  German  critic  Hettinger's 
appreciation  of  Dante,  and  deserves  a  place  here  because  it 
shows  how  much  a  representative  modern  churchman  thinks  of 
the  great  Florentine  poet. 

"There  are  three  works  which  always  seem  to  me  to  form  a 
triad  of  Dogma,  of  Poetry,  and  of  Devotion, — The  Summa  ot 
St.  Thomas,  The  Divina  Commedia,  and  the  Paradisus  Animae 
(a  manual  of  devotional  exercises  by  Horstius).  All  three 
contain  the  same  outline  of  Faith.  St.  Thomas  traces  it  on  the 
intellect,  Dante  upon  the  imagination,  and  the  Paradisus  Ani- 
mae upon  the  heart.  The  poem  unites  the  book  of  Dogma 
and  the  book  of  Devotion,  clothed  in  conceptions  of  intensity 
and  of  beauty  which  have  never  been  surpassed  nor  equalled. 
No  uninspired  hand  has  ever  written  thoughts  so  high  in 
words,  so  resplendent  as  the  last  stanza  of  the  Divina  Com- 
media. It  was  said  of  St.  Thomas,  'Post  Summon  Thomae 
nihil  restat  nisi  lumen  gloriae' — After  the  Summa  of  Thomas 
nothing  is  left  except  the  light  of  glory.  It  may  be  said  of 
Dante,  'Post  Dantis  Paradisum  nihil  restat  nisi  visio  Dei'— 
After  Dante's  Paradise  nothing  is  left  except  the  vision  of  God." 

Of  course  John  Ruskin  had  a  thorough-going  admiration 
for  so  great  a  spiritual  thinker  as  Dante  and  expressed  it  in  no 


DANTE  THE  POET.  309 

uncertain  terms.  With  his  wonderful  power  to  point  out  the 
significance  of  unexpected  manifestations  of  human  genius, 
Ruskin  has  even  succeeded  in  minimizing  one  of  the  great  ob- 
jections urged  against  Dante,  better  perhaps  than  could  be  done 
by  anyone  else,  for  English  speaking  people  at  least.  For  many 
readers  Dante  is  almost  unbearable,  because  of  certain  gro- 
tesque elements  they  find  in  him.  This  has  been  the  source 
and  cause  of  more  unfavorable  criticism  than  anything  else  in 
the  great  Florentine's  writings.  Ruskin  of  course  saw  it  but 
appreciated  it  at  its  proper  significance,  and  has  made  clear  in 
a  passage  that  every  Dante  reader  needs  to  go  over  occasion- 
ally, in  order  to  assure  himself  that  certain  unusual  things  in 
Dante's  attitude  'toward  life  are  an  expression  rather  of  the 
highest  human  genius  and  its  outlook  on  life,  than  some  nar- 
row limitation  of  medievalism.  Ruskin  said : — 

"I  believe  that  there  is  no  test  of  greatness  in  nations,  periods, 
nor  men  more  sure  than  the  development,  among  them 
or  in  them,  of  a  noble  grotesque,  and  no  test  of  comparative 
smallness  or  limitation,  of  one  kind  or  another,  more  sure 
than  the  absence  of  grotesque  invention  or  incapability  of 
understanding  it.  I  think  that  the  central  man  of  all  the  world, 
as  representing  in  perfect  balance  the  imaginative,  moral  and 
intellectual  faculties,  all  at  their  highest  is  Dante;  and  in  him 
the  grotesque  reaches  at  once  the  most  distinct  and  the  most 
noble  development  to  which  it  was  ever  brought  in  the  human 
mind.  Of  the  grotesqueness  in  our  own  Shakespeare  I  need 
hardly  speak,  nor  of  its  intolerableness  to  his  French  critics; 
nor  of  that  of  yEschylus  and  Homer,  as  opposed  to  the  lower 
Greek  writers ;  and  so  I  believe  it  will  be  found,  at  all  periods, 
in  all  minds  of  the  first  order." 

Great  reverence  for  Dante  might  have  been  expected  in  Italy 
but  the  colder  Northern  nations  shared  it. 

In  Germany  modern  admiration  for  Dante  began  with  that 
great  wave  of  critical  appreciation  which  entered  into  German 
literature  with  the  end  of  the  Eighteenth  and  the  beginning  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century.  As  might  almost  have  been  expected. 
Frederick  Schlegel  was  one  of  the  first  modern  German  admir- 
ers of  Dante,  though  his  brother  August,  whose  translations 
of  Shakespeare  began  that  series  of  German  studies  of  Shakes- 


310  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

peare  which  has  been  so  fruitful  during  the  past  century,  was 
also  an  open  admirer  of  the  medieval  poet.  Since  then  there 
has  practically  been  no  time  when  Germany  has  not  had  some 
distinguished  Dante  scholar,  and  when  it  has  not  been  sup- 
plying the  world  with  the  products  of  profound  study  and 
deep  scholarship  with  regard  to  him.  The  modern  educational 
world  has  come  to  look  so  confidently  toward  Germany  for  the 
note  of  its  critical  appreciation,  that  the  Dante  devotion  of  the 
Germans  will  be  the  best  possible  encouragement  for  those 
who  need  to  have  the  feeling,  that  their  own  liking  is  shared 
by  good  authorities,  before  they  are  quite  satisfied  with  their 
appreciation.  Dean  Plumptre  has  summed  up  the  Dante  move- 
ment in  Germany  in  a  compendious  paragraph  that  must  find 
a  place  here. 

"In  the  year  1824,  Scartazzini,  the  great  Dante  scholar  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  recognizes  a  new  starting  point.  The 
period  of  neglect  of  supercilious  criticism  comes  to  an  end,  and 
one  of  reverence,  admiration  and  exhaustive  study  begins. 
His  account  of  the  labors  of  German  scholars  during  the  sixty 
years  that  have  followed  fills  a  large  part  of  his  volume.  Trans- 
lations of  the  Commedia  by  Kopisch,  Kannegiesser,  Witte, 
Philalethes  (the  nom  de  plume  of  John,  King  of  Saxony),  Jo- 
sefa  Von  Hoffinger,  of  the  Minor  Poems  by  Witte  and  Krafft, 
endless  volumes  and  articles  on  all  points  connected  with 
Dante's  life  and  character,  the  publications  of  the  Deutsche 
Dante-Gesellschaft  from  1867  to  1877,  present  a  body  of  litera- 
ture which  has  scarcely  a  parallel  in  history.  It  is  no  exaggera- 
tion to  say  that  the  Germans  have  taught  Italians  to  understand 
and  appreciate  their  own  poet,  just  as  they  have  at  least  helped 
to  teach  Englishmen  to  understand  Shakespeare." 

Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  only  the  literary  lights  of  Ger- 
many thoroughly  appreciated  the  great  Florentine.  The  greater 
the  genius  of  the  man  the  more  his  admiration  for  Dante  if 
he  but  once  becomes  interested  in  him.  A  noteworthy  example 
of  this  is  Alexander  Von  Humboldt  the  distinguished  German 
scientist,  who  was  generally  looked  upon  as  perhaps  the  great- 
est thinker  in  European  science  during  the  first  quarter  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century.  He  is  said  to  have  been  very  faithful 
in  his  study  of  Dante  and  has  expressed  his  admiration  in  no 


DANTE  THE  POET.  311 

uncertain  terms.  Curiously  enough  he  found  much  to  admire 
him  for  in  matters  scientific,  for  while  it  is  not  generally  real- 
ized, Dante  was  an  acute  observer  of  Nature  and  has  given  ex- 
pression in  his  works  to  many  observations  with  regard  to  sub- 
jects that  would  now  be  considered  within  the  scope  of  nat- 
ural science,  in  a  way  to  anticipate  many  supposedly  modern 
bits  of  information.  With  regard  to  this  Humboldt  said  in  his 
Cosmos : — 

"When  the  glory  of  the  Aramaic  Greek  and  Roman  domin- 
ion— or  I  might  almost  say,  when  the  ancient  world  had  passed 
away, — we  find  in  the  great  and  inspired  founder  of  a  new  era, 
Dante  Alighieri,  occasional  manifestations  of  the  deepest  sensi- 
bility to  the  charms  of  the  terrestrial  life  of  Nature,  whenever 
he  abstracts  himself  from  the  passionate  and  subjective  control 
of  that  despondent  mysticism  which  constituted  the  general  cir- 
cle of  his  ideas."  How  little  Humboldt  seems  to  have  realized 
in  his  own  absorption  in  external  nature,  that  the  qualities  he 
blames  in  Dante  are  of  the  very  essence  of  his  genius,  rounding 
out  his  humanity  to  an  interest  in  all  man's  relations,  super- 
natural as  well  as  natural,  and  that  without  them  he  would  not 
be  the  world  poet  for  all  time  that  he  is^/  ' 

In  America  Dante  came  to  his  own  almost  as  soon  as  litera- 
ture obtained  her  proper  place  in  our  new  country.  The  first 
generation  of  distinctly  literary  men  comprise  the  group  at 
Cambridge  including  Longfellow,  Emerson,  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  Charles  Eliot  Norton,  James  Russell  Lowell,  and 
others  of  minor  importance.  It  soon  became  a  favorite  occupa- 
tion among  these  men  to  give  certain  leisure  hours  to  Dante.  The 
Cambridge  Dante  society  added  not  a  little  to  the  world's 
knowledge  of  the  poet.  Longfellow's  translation  and  edition 
of  Dante's  works  was  a  monumental  achievement,  for  which 
its  author  is  likely  to  be  remembered  better  by  future  genera- 
tions than  perhaps  for  any  of  his  original  work.  Future  gen- 
erations are  likely  to  remember  James  Russell  Lowell  for  his 
essays  on  Dante  and  Shakespeare  better  than  for  anything  else. 
His  Dante  monograph  is  as  magnificently  illuminating  as 
that  of  Dean  Church's  and  perhaps  even  more  satisfying  to 
critical  readers.  That  these  men  should  have  been  content 
to  give  so  much  of  their  time  to  the  study  of  the  Thirteenth 


312  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Century  poet  shows  in  what  appreciation  he  must  be  held  by 
the  rest  of  us  if  we  would  give  him  his  due  place  in  literature. 

There  are  many  misunderstandings  with  regard  to  Dante 
which  apparently  only  some  serious  study  of  the  poet  serves 
to  remove  satisfactorily.  Most  people  consider  that  he  was  a 
distant,  prophetic,  religious  genius,  and  that  his  poetry  has  in 
it  very  little  of  sympathy  for  humanity.  While  it  is  generally 
conceded  that  he  saw  man  projected  on  the  curtain  of  eternity, 
and  realized  all  his  relationships  to  the  universe  and  to  his 
Creator  better  than  perhaps  any  other  poet  of  all  time,  it  is 
usually  thought  that  one  must  have  something  of  the  medieval 
frame  of  mind  in  order  to  read  him  with  interest  and  admira- 
tion. Such  impressions  are  largely  the  result  of  reading  only  a 
few  lines  of  Dante,  and,  finding  them  difficult  of  thorough  com- 
prehension, allowing  one's  self  to  be  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  is  not  of  interest  to  the  modern  reader.  The  Inferno 
being  the  first  part  of  Dante's  great  poem  is  the  one  oftenest 
read  in  this  passing  fashion  and  so  many  ideas  with  regard  to 
Dante  are  derived  from  this  portion,  which  is  not  only  not  the 
masterpiece  of  the  work,  but  if  taken  alone,  sadly  misrepre- 
sents the  genius  of  the  poet.  His  is  no  morbid  sentimentality 
and  does  not  need  the  adventitious  interest  of  supreme  suffering. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Purgatorio  is  a  much  better  introduc- 
tion to  Dante's  real  greatness,  and  is  considered  by  the  gen- 
erality of  Dante  scholars  as  the  more  humanly  sympathetic  if 
not  really  the  supreme  expression  of  his  creative  faculty.  The 
ascent  of  the  Mount  of  Expiation  with  its  constant  note  of  hope" 
and  the  gradually  increasing  facility  of  the  ascent  as  the  sum- 
mit is  approached,  touches  condolent  cords  in  the  human  heart 
and  arouses  feelings  that  are  close  to  what  is  best  in  human 
aspiration  in  spite  of  its  consciousness  of  defect.  Over  and 
over  again  in  the  Purgatorio  one  finds  evidence  of  Dante's  won- 
derful powers  of  observation.  The  poet  is  first  of  all  according 
to  the  etymology  of  the  word  a  creator,  one  who  gives  life  to  the 
figments  of  his  imagination  so  that  we  recognize  them  as  vital 
manifestations  of  human  genius,  but  is  also  the  seer,  the  man 
who  sees  deeper  into  things  and  sees  more  of  them  than  anyone 
else.  Ordinarily  Dante  is  considered  by  those  who  do  not  know 
him  as  not  having  been  an  observer  of  things  human  and 


DANTE  THE  POET.  313 

around  him  in  life.    There  are  passages  in  his  works,  however, 
that  entirely  refute  this. 

The  story  that  he  went  about  the  cities  of  North  Italy  during 
his  exile,  with  countenance  so  gloomy  and  stare  so  fixed  that 
men  pointed  to  him  and  spoke  of  him  as  one  who  had  visited 
Hell,  and  the  other  tradition,  however  well  it  may  be  founded, 
that  the  women  sometimes  pointed  him  out  to  their  children  and 
then  used  the  memory  of  him  as  a  bogy  man  to  scare  them  into 
doing  unpleasant  things  afterwards,  would  seem  to  indicate 
that  he  had  occupied  himself  very  little  with  the  things  around 
him,  and  that  above  all  he  had  paid  very  little  attention  to  the 
ways  of  childhood.  He  has  shown  over  and  over  again,  es- 
pecially in  the  Purgatorio,  that  the  simplest  and  most  natural 
actions  of  child-life  had  been  engraved  upon  his  heart  for  he 
uses  them  with  supreme  truth  in  his  figures.  He  knows  how 

"An  infant  seeks  his  mother's  breast 

When  fear  or  anguish  vex  his  troubled  heart," — 

but  he  knows  too,  how  the  child  who  has  done  wrong,  confesses 
its  faults. 

"As  little  children,  dumb  with  shame's  keen  smart, 
Will  listening  stand  with  eyes  upon  the  ground, 
Owning  their  faults  with  penitential  heart, 
So  then  stood  I." 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Inferno  in  which  he  describes  so 
vividly  the  rescue  of  a  child  from  the  flames  by  its  mother  that 
Plumptre  has  even  ventured  to  suggest  that  Dante  himself  may 
have  been  the  actual  subject  of  the  rescue.  Because  it  helps  to 
an  appreciation  of  Dante's  intensity  of  expression  and  poig- 
nancy of  vision  the  passage  itself,  with  Plumptre's  comment, 
seems  deserving  of  quotation: 

"Then  suddenly  my  Guide  his  arms  did  fling 
Around  me,  as  a  mother,  roused  by  cries, 
Sees  the  fierce  flames  around  her  gathering 
And  takes  her  boy,  nor  ever  halts  but  flies, 
Caring  for  him  than  for  herself  far  more, 
Though  one  scant  shift  her  only  robe  supplies." 


314  GREA  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  Dante's  quality  as  an 
observer  was  limited  to  the  actions  of  human  beings.  His 
capacity  to  see  many  other  things  is  amply  manifested  in  his 
great  poem.  Even  the  smallest  of  living  things,  that  would 
surely  be  thought  beneath  his  notice,  became  the  subject  of 
similies  that  show  how  much  everything  in  nature  interested 
the  spirit  of  genius.  The  passage  with  regard  to  the  ants  has 
often  been  quoted,  and  is  indeed  a  surprising  manifestation  of 
nature  study  at  an  unexpected  time  and  from  an  entirely  unan- 
ticipated quarter.  Dante  saw  the  souls  of  those  who  were  so 
soon  to  enter  into  the  realm  of  blessedness,  and  who  were  al- 
ready in  the  last  circle  of  purgatory,  greeting  each  other 
with  the  kiss  of  peace  and  his  picturesque  simile  for  it  is : — 

"So  oft,  within  their  dusk  brown  host,  proceed 
This  ant  and  that,  till  muzzle  muzzle  meet ; 
Spying  their  way,  or  how  affairs  succeed." 

As  for  the  birds  his  pages  are  full  of  references  to  them 
and  all  of  his  bird  similies  are  couched  in  terms  that  show  how 
sympathetically  observant  he  was  of  their  habits  and  ways.  He 
knows  their  different  methods  of  flying  in  groups  and  singly, 
he  has  observed  them  on  their  nests  and  knows  their  wonderful 
maternal  anxiety  for  their  young,  and  describes  it  with  a  vivid- 
ness that  would  do  credit  to  a  naturalist  of  the  modern  time 
who  had  made  his  home  in  the  woods.  Indeed  some  of  his 
figures  taken  from  birds  constitute  examples  of  the  finest  pas- 
sages of  poetic  description  of  living  nature  that  have  ever  been 
written.  The  domestic  animals,  moreover,  especially  the  cat 
and  the  dog,  come  in  for  their  share  of  this  sympathetic  obser- 
vance, and  he  is  able  to  add  greatly  to  the  vividness  of  the 
pictures  he  paints  by  his  references  to  the  well-known  habits 
of  these  animals.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  tradition  has  grown 
up  that  he  was  fond  of  such  pets  and  possessed  several  of 
them  that  were  well-known  to  the  early  commentators  on  his 
poems,  and  the  subject  of  no  little  erudition. 

Nothing  escaped  the  attention  of  this  acute  observer  in  the 
world  around  him,  and  over  and  over  again  one  finds  surpris- 
ing bits  of  observation  with  regard  to  natural  phenomena  usu- 
ally supposed  to  be  quite  out  of  the  range  of  the  interest  of 


DANTE  THE  POET.  315 

medieval  students  generally,  and  above  all  of  literary  men  of 
this  Middle  Age.  Alexander  Von  Humboldt  calls  attention  in 
a  well-known  passage  in  his  Cosmos  to  the  wonderful  descrip- 
tion of  the  River  of  Light  in  the  Thirtieth  Canto  of  the  Para- 
diso. 

"I  saw  a  glory  like  a  stream  flow  by, 

In  brightness  rushing  and  on  either  shore 
Were  banks  that  with  spring's  wondrous  hues  might  vie. 

And  from  that  river  living  sparks  did  soar, 
And  sank  on  all  sides  in  the  flow'rets'  bloom, 

Like  precious  rubies  set  in  golden  ore. 
Then,  as  if  drunk  with  all  the  rich  perfume, 

Back  to  the  wondrous  torrent  did  they  roll, 
And  as  one  sank  another  filled  its  room." 

Humboldt  explains  this  with  a  suggestion  that  deserves  to 
be  remembered. 

"It  would  almost  seem  as  it  this  picture  had  its  origin  in  the 
poet's  recollection  of  that  peculiar  and  rare  phosphorescent 
condition  of  the  ocean  in  which  luminous  points  appear  to  rise 
from  the  breaking  waves,  and,  spreading  themselves  over  the 
surface  of  the  waters,  convert  the  liquid  plain  into  a  moving 
sea  of  sparkling  stars." 

Probably  the  best  way  for  a  modern  to  realize  how  much  of 
interest  there  may  be  for  him  in  Dante  is  to  consider  the  great 
Italian  epic  poet  in  comparison  with  our  greatest  of  English 
epic  poets,  Milton.  While  any  such  comparison  in  the  expres- 
sive Latin  phrase  is  sure  to  walk  lame,  it  serves  to  give  an  ex- 
cellent idea  of  the  methods  of  the  two  men  in  the  illustration 
of  their  ideas.  We  venture  therefore  to  quote  a  comparison 
between  these  two  poets  from  a  distinguished  critic  who  knows 
both  of  them  well,  and  whose  modern  training  in  English 
methods  of  thought,  would  seem  to  make  him  likely  to  be  par- 
tial to  the  more  modern  poet  though  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  con- 
stantly leans  toward  the  great  medieval  bard. 

"The  poetry  of  Milton  differs  from  that  of  Dante  as  the 
hieroglyphics  of  Egypt  differ  from  the  picture-writing  of  Mex- 
ico. The  images  which  Dante  employs  speak  for  themselves; 
they  stand  simply  for  what  they  are.  Those  of  Milton  have  a 


316  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

signification  which  is  often  discernible  only  to  the  initiated.  .  .  . 
However  strange,  however  grotesque,  he  never  shrinks  from 
describing  it.  He  gives  us  the  shape,  the  color,  the  sound, 
the  smell,  the  taste;  he  counts  the  numbers;  he  measures  the 
size.  His  similies  are  the  illustrations  of  a  traveler.  Unlike 
those  of  other  poets,  and  especially  of  Milton,  they  are  intro- 
duced in  a  plain  business-like  manner,  not  for  the  sake  of  any 
of -the  beauty  in  the  objects  from  which  they  are  drawn ;  not  for 
the  sake  of  any  ornament  they  may  impart  to  the  poem ;  but 
simply  in  order  to  make  the  meaning  of  the  writer  as  clear  to 
the  reader  as  it  is  to  himself." 

"Still  more  striking  is  the  similarity  between  Dante  and 
Milton.  This  may  be  said  to  lie  rather  in  the  kindred  nature  of 
their  subjects,  and  in  the  parallel  development  of  their  minds, 
than  in  any  mere  external  resemblance.  In  both  the  man  was 
greater  than  the  poet,  the  souls  of  both  were  like  a  star  and 
dwelt  apart.'  Both  were  academically  trained  in  the  deepest 
studies  of  their  age ;  the  labour  which  made  Dante  lean  made 
Milton  blind.  The  'Doricke  sweetnesse'  of  the  English  poet 
is  not  absent  from  the  tender  pages  of  the  Vita  Nuova.  The 
middle  life  of  each  was  spent  in  active  controversy;  each  lent 
his  services  to  the  state ;  each  felt  the  quarrels  of  his  age  to  be 
the  'business  of  posterity,'  and  left  his  warnings  to  ring  in  the 
ears  of  a  later  time.  The  lives  of  both  were  failures.  'On  evil 
days  though  fallen,  and  evil  tongues,'  they  gathered  the  con- 
centrated experience  of  their  lives  into  one  immortal  work,  the 
quintessence  of  their  hopes,  their  knowledge,  and  their  suffer- 
ings. But  Dante  is  something  more  than  this.  Milton's  voice 
is  grown  faint  to  us — we  have  passed  into  other  modes  of  ex- 
pression and  of  thought." 

The  comparison  with  Vergil  is  still  more  striking  and  more 
favorable  to  the  Italian  poet.  "Dante's  reputation  has  passed 
through  many  vicissitudes,  and  much  trouble  has  been  spent  by 
critics  in  comparing  him  with  other  poets  of  established  fame. 
Read  and  commented  upon  in  the  Italian  universities  in  the 
generation  immediately  succeeding  his  death,  his  name  be- 
came obscured  as  the  sun  of  the  Renaissance  rose  higher 
towards  its  meridian.  In  the  Seventeenth  Century  he  was  less 
read  than  Petrarch,,  Tasso,  or  Ariosto ;  in  the  Eighteenth  he  was 


DANTE  THE  POET.  317 

almost  universally  neglected*  His  fame  is  now  fully 
vindicated.  Translations  and  commentaries  issue  from  every 
press  in  Europe  and  America.  Dante  Societies  are  formed  to 
investigate  the  difficulties  of  his  works.  He  occupies  in  the 
lecture-rooms  of  regenerated  Italy  a  place  by  the  side  of  those 
great  masters  whose  humble  disciple  he  avowed  himself  to  be. 
The  Divine  Comedy  is  indeed  as  true  an  epic  as  the  /Eneid,  and 
Dante  is  as  real  a  classic  as  Vergil.  His  metre  is  as  pliable 
and  flexible  to  every  mood  of  emotion,  his  diction  as  plaintive 
and  as  sonorous.  Like  him  he  can  immortalize  by  a  simple  ex- 
pression, a  person,  a  place,  or  a  phase  of  nature.  Dante  is 
even  truer  in  description  than  Vergil,  whether  he  paints  the 
snow  falling  in  the  Alps,  or  the  homeward  flight  of  birds,  or 
the  swelling  of  an  angry  torrent.  But  under  this  gorgeous 
pageantry  of  poetry  there  lies  a  unity  of  conception,  a  power 
of  philosophic  grasp,  an  earnestness  of  religion,  which  to  the 
Roman  poet  were  entirely  unknown." 

If  we  would  have  a  very  recent  opinion  as  to  the  position  of 
Dante  as  a  literary  man  and  as  a  great  intellectual  force,  per- 
haps no  better  can  be  obtained  than  from  some  recent  expres- 
sions of  Mr.  Michael  Rossetti,  whose  Italian  descent,  English 
training,  and  literary  and  artistic  heredity,  seem  to  place  him  in 
an  ideal  position  for  writing  this  generation's  ultimate  judg- 
ment with  regard  to  the  great  poet  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
In  his  Literature  of  Italy  he  said: — 

"One  has  to  recur  time  after  time,  to  that  astounding  protag- 
onist, phenomenon  and  hero,  Dante  Alighieri.  If  one  were  to 
say  that  Italian  literature  consists  of  Dante,  it  would,  no  doubt, 
be  an  exaggeration,  and  a  gross  one,  and  yet  it  would  contain 
a  certain  ultimate  nucleus  of  truth." 

"Dante  fixed  the  Italian  language,  and  everyone  had  to  tread 
in  his  vestiges.  He  embodied  all  the  learning  and  thought  of 
his  age  and  transcended  them.  He  went  far  ahead  of  all  his 
predecessors,  contemporaries,  and  successors;  he  wrote  the 
first  remarkable  book  in  Italian  prose,  La  Vita  Nuova ;  and  a 
critical  exposition  of  it  in  the  Convito;  in  Latin,  a  linguistic 
treatise,  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  which  upholds  the  Vulgare 
Illustre,  or  speech  of  the  best  cultivated  classes,  markedly  in 
Tuscany  and  Bologna,  against  the  common  dialects;  and  a 


318 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


political  study,  De  Monarchia,  of  the  most  fundamental  quality, 
which  even  to  us  moderns  continues  to  be  sane  and  convincing 
in  its  essence,  though  its  direct  line  of  argument  has  collapsed ; 
and  finally,  and  most  important  by  far,  he  produced  in  La  Corn- 
media  Divina  the  one  poem  of  modern  Europe  that  counter- 
balances Shakespeare  and  challenges  antiquity.  This  is  the 
sole  book  which  makes  it  a  real  pity  for  anyone  to  be  igno- 
rant of  Italian.  Regarded  singly,  it  is  much  the  most  aston- 
ishing poem  in  the  world,  dwarfing  all  others  by  its  theme, 
pulverizing  most  of  them  by  its  majesty  and  sustainment, 
unique  in  the  force  of  its  paraded  personality  and  the  thunder- 
ous reverberation  of  its  judgments  on  the  living  and  the  dead." 


ANGEL  (RHEIMS; 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  319 

XX 

THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY. 


In  generations  whose  men  proved  so  unending  in  initiative 
and  so  forceful  in  accomplishment,  so  commanding  in  intelli- 
gence, so  persistent  in  their  purposes,  so  acute  in  their  search^ 
ing,  so  successful  in  their  endeavors,  the  women  of  the  time 
could  not  have  been  unworthy  of  them.  Some  hints  of  this  have 
been  already  given,  in  what  has  been  said  about  the  making  of 
furnishings  for  the  church,  especially  in  the  matter  of  needle- 
work and  the  handpainting  of  various  forms  of  ornaments. 
There  are  further  intimations  in  the  histories  of  the  time,  though 
unfortunately  not  very  definite  information,  with  regard  to 
even  more  ambitious  accomplishments  by  the  women  of  the 
period.  There  are,  for  instance,  traditions  that  the  designs 
for  some  of  the  Cathedrals  and  certainly  for  portions  of  many 
of  them  came  from  women's  hands.  It  is  in  the  ethical  sphere, 
however,  that  women  accomplished  great  things  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  Their  influence  stood  for  what  was  best 
and  highest  in  the  life  of  the  time  and  their  example  encour- 
aged not  only  their  own  generation,  but  many  people  in  many 
subsequent  generations  "to  look  up,  not  down,  to  look  within, 
not  without"  for  happiness,  and  to  trust  that  "God's  in  his 
heaven  and  all's  well  with  the  world." 

There  are  a  number  of  women  of  the  time  whose  names  the 
race  will  not  let  die.  While  if  the  ordinary  person  were  asked 
to  enumerate  the  great  women  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  it 
would  be  rare  to  find  one  able  properly  to  place  them,  as  soon 
as  their  names  are  mentioned,  it  will  be  recognized  that  they 
succeeded  in  accomplishing  work  of  such  significance  that 
the  world  is  not  likely  to  let  the  reputation  of  it  perish.  Some 
of  these  names  are  household  words.  The  bearers  of  them 
have  been  written  of  at  length  in  quite  recent  years  in  English 
as  well  as  in  other  languages.  Their  work  was  of  the  kind  that 
ordinarily  stands  quite  apart  from  the  course  of  history  and 


320  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

so  dates  are  usually  not  attached  to  it.  It  is  thought  of  as  a 
portion  of  the  precious  heritage  of  mankind  rather  than  as  be- 
longing to  any  particular  period.  Three  names  occur  at  once. 
They  are  St.  Clare  of  Assisi,  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  and 
Queen  Blanche  of  Castile,  the  mother  of  St.  Louis.  To  these 
should  be  added  Queen  Berengaria,  the  sister  of  Blanche,  and 
the  mother  of  Ferdinand  of  Castile;  Mabel  Rich,  the  London 
tradesman's  wife,  the  mother  of  St.  Edmund  of  Canterbury; 
and  Isabella,  the  famous  Countess  of  Arundel. 

The  present  day  interest  in  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  has  brought 
St.  Clare  under  the  lime-light  of  publicity.  There  is  no  doubt 
at  all  that  her  name  is  well  worthy  to  be  mentioned  along  with 
his  and  that  she,  like  him,  must  be  considered  one  of  the 
strongest  and  most  beautiful  characters  of  all  time.  She  was 
the  daughter  of  a  noble  family  at  Assisi,  who,  having  heard 
St.  Francis  preach,  became  impressed  with  the  idea  that  she 
too  should  have  the  opportunity  to  live  the  simple  life  that  St. 
Francis  pictured.  Of  course  her  family  opposed  her  in  any  such 
notion.  That  a  daughter  of  theirs  should  take  up  with  a  wan- 
dering preacher,  who  at  that  time  was  looked  on  not  a  little 
askance  by  the  regular  religious  authorities,  and  whose  rags 
and  poverty  made  him  anything  but  a  proper  associate  for  a 
young  lady  of  noble  birth,  could  not  but  seem  an  impossible 
idea.  Accordingly  Clare  ran  away  from  home  and  told  Francis 
that  she  would  never  go  back  and  that  he  must  help  her  to  live 
her  life  in  poverty  just  as  he  was  doing  himself.  He  sent  her 
to  a  neighboring  convent  to  be  cared  for,  and  also  very  proba- 
bly so  as  to  be  assured  of  her  vocation. 

After  a  time  a  special  convent  home  for  Clare  and  some 
other  young  women,  who  had  become  enamored  with  the  life 
of  poverty  and  simplicity  was  established,  and  to  this  Clare's 
sister  Agnes  came  as  a  postulant.  By  this  time  apparently  the 
family  had  become  reconciled  to  Clare's  absence  from  home, 
but  they  would  not  stand  another  daughter  following  such  a 
foolish  example.  Accordingly  Agnes  was  removed  from  the 
convent  by  force  after  a  scene  which  caused  the  greatest  excite- 
ment in  the  little  town.  It  was  not  long,  however,  before  Agnes 
returned  to  the  convent  and  within  a  few  years  their  mother 
followed  them,  ancl  became  one  of  the  m'ofe't  ferVent  rnfembe'rs 


ST.  CLARE'S  FAREWELL  TO  THE  DEAD  ST.  FRANCIS  (GIOTTO) 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  321 

of  the  little  community.  The  peace  and  happiness  that  came 
with  this  life  of  absolute  poverty  soon  attracted  many  other 
women  and  Clare  was  asked  to  establish  houses  at  a  distance, 
Gradually  the  order  of  Poor  Clares,  the  second  order  of  St. 
Francis,  thus  came  into  existence.  When  it  was  necessary  to 
draw  up  constitutions  for  the  order,  Clare  showed  not  only  the 
breadth  of  her  intelligence,  but  the  depth  of  her  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  and  her  appreciation  of  what  was  absolutely 
necessary  in  order  to  keep  her  order  from  degeneration. 
Against  the  counsels  of  all  the  ecclesiastics  of  her  time,  in- 
cluding many  cardinals  and  even  a  Pope,  she  insisted  on  the 
most  absolute  poverty  as  the  only  basis  for  the  preservation  of 
the  spirit  of  her  second  order  of  St.  Francis.  Her  character 
was  well  manifested  in  this  contest  from  which  she  came  out 
victorious. 

Her  body  lias  been  miraculously  preserved  and  may  still  be 
seen  at  Assisi.  Anyone  who  has  seen  the  strongly  set  lips  and 
full  firm  chin  of  the  body  in  the  crypt  of  San  Damiano,  can 
easily  understand  the  strength  of  purpose  and  of  character 
of  this  young  woman  who  moulded  a  generation  to  her  will. 
The  story  is  told  of  her,  that  once  when  the  Saracens  invaded 
Italy  and  attacked  the  convent,  she  mounted  the  walls  with 
a  monstrance  containing  the  Blessed  Sacrament  in  her  hands, 
and  the  marauders  turned  away  in  consternation  from  the 
stern  brave  figure  that  confronted  them,  and  bothered  the 
nuns  no  more.  After  St.  Francis'  death  she,  more  than  anyone 
else,  succeeded  in  maintaining  the  spirit  of  the  Franciscan  order 
in  the  way  in  which  St.  Francis  would  have  it  go.  Long  after 
her  death  a  copy  of  the  original  rules  was  found  in  the  fold 
of  her  garments  and  did  much  to  restore  the  Franciscan  life  to 
its  primitive  simplicity  and  purpose,  so  that  even  after  she  was 
no  more  on  earth,  she  was  still  the  guardian  and  promoter  of 
St.  Francis'  work. 

If  one  wants  to  know  how  much  of  happiness  there  came  to 
her  in  life  one  should  read  the  famous  passage  which  describes 
her  visit  to  St.  Francis,  and  how  she  and  he  with  sisters  and 
brothers  around  them  broke  bread  together,  with  a  sweetness 
that  was  beyond  human.  The  passage  is  to  be  found  in  the 
"Little  Flowers  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,"  which  was  written 


322  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

within  a  century  after  the  occurrences  described.  It  recalls 
nothing  so  much  as  the  story  of  the  disciples  at  Emaus  and  is 
worthy  to  be  thought  of  beside  the  Scripture  story.  * 

What  Saint  Clare  accomplished  as  her  life  work  was  the 
making  of  a  new  vocation  for  women.  There  are  always  a  cer- 
tain number  of  women  who  look  for  peace  and  quiet  rather  than 
the  struggle  for  existence.  For  these  the  older  monasteries 
did  not  supply  a  place  unless  they  were  of  the  wealthier  class 
as  a  rule.  Among  the  Poor  Clares  women  of  all  classes  were 
received.  In  this  way  a  great  practical  lesson  in  equality  was 

*When  came  the  day  ordained  by  Francis,  Saint  Clare  with  one 
companion  passed  forth  from  out  the  convent  and  with  the  com- 
panions of  Saint  Francis  to  bear  her  company  came  unto  Saint  Mary 
of  the  Angels,  and  devoutly  saluted  the  Virgin  Mary  before  her  altar, 
where  she  had  been  shorn  and  veiled;  so  they  conducted  her  to  see 
the  house,  until  such  time  as  the  hour  for  breaking  bread  was  come. 
And  in  the  meantime  Saint  Francis  let  make  ready  the  table  on  the 
bare  ground,  as  he  was  wont  to  do.  And  the  hour  of  breaking  bread 
being  come,  they  set  themselves  down  together,  Saint  Francis  and 
Saint  Clare,  and  one  of  the  companions  of  Saint  Francis  with  the 
companion  of  Saint  Clare,  and  all  the  other  companions  took  each 
his  place  at  the  table  with  all  humility.  And  at  the  first  dish,  Saint 
Francis  began  to  speak  of  God  so  sweetly,  so  sublimely  and 
so  wondrously,  that  the  fulness  of  Divine  grace  came  down  on 
them,  and  they  all  were  wrapt  in  God.  And  as  they  were 
thus  wrapt,  with  eyes  and  hands  uplift  to  heaven,  the  folk  of 
Assisi  and  Bettona  and  the  country  round  about,  saw  that  Saint 
Mary  of  the  Angels,  and  all  the  House,  and  the  wood  that  was 
just  hard  by  the  house,  were  burning  brightly,  and  it  seemed  as  it  were 
a  great  fire  that  filled  the  church  and  the  House  and  the  whole  wood 
together :  for  the  which  cause  the  folk  of  Assisi  ran  thither  in  great 
haste  to  quench  the  flames,  believing  of  a  truth  that  the  whole  place 
was  all  on  fire.  But  coming  closer  up  to  the  House  and  finding  no  fire 
at  all,  they  entered  within  and  found  Saint  Francis  and  Saint  Clare  and 
all  their  company  in  contemplation  rapt  in  God  and  sitting  around  that 
humble  board.  Wherebv  of  a  truth  thev  understood  that  this  had  been 
a  heavenly  flame  and  no  earthly  one  at  all,  which  God  had  let  appear 
miraculously,  for  to  show  and  signify  the  fire  of  love  divine  wherewith 
the  souls  of  those  holy  brothers  and  holy  nuns  were  all  aflame ;  where- 
for  they  got  them  gone  with  great  consolation  in  their  hearts  and  with 
holy  edifying.  Then  after  some  long  space,  Saint  Francis  and  Saint 
Clare,  together  with  all  the  others,  returning  to  themselves  again  and 
feeling  of  good  comfort  from  the  spiritual  food  took  little  heed  of  the 
food  of  the  body. 


(MirilCH    (DOBERAN) 


SAN    DAMIANO    (ASSISI) 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  323 

taught.  Women  did  not  have  to  marry,  perhaps  unsuitable, 
often  even  objectionable  men,  simply  in  order  to  have  a  mode  of 
life.  They  could  join  one  of  these  communities  and  though 
in  absolute  poverty,  with  many  hours  each  day  devoted  to  medi- 
tation and  prayer,  had  time  to  give  to  beautiful  needlework, 
to  painting  and  book  illumination,  and  to  other  feminine  occu- 
pations ;  and  might  thus  pass  long,  happy  lives,  apart  from  the 
bustle  of  the  strenuous  time. 

Italy  at  this  time,  it  must  be  recalled,  was  a  seething  caul- 
dron of  political  and  military  strife.  Wars  were  waged,  and 
struggles  of  all  kinds  engaged  in  for  precedence  and  power. 
These  women  got  away  from  this  unfortunate  state  of  affairs. 
Occasionally  in  times  of  pestilence,  when  they  were  specially 
needed,  as  happened  at  least  once  in  Saint  Clare's  life,  they 
took  care  of  the  ailing  and  lent  their  convent  as  a  hospital. 
Above  all  they  stood  in  the  eyes  of  their  generation  for  chosen 
people  who  saw  things  differently  from  others.  They  taught 
the  great  lesson  of  not  caring  too  much  for  the  things  of  this 
world  and  of  not  living  one's  life  in  order  to  get  admiration 
though  usually  envy  comes,  nor  idle  praise  for  qualities  they 
either  do  not  possess  or  that  are  not  worthy  of  notice.  They 
showed  people  the  real  value  of  this  life  by  its  reflection  upon 
the  other.  Many  a  man  turned  aside  from  ambitious  schemes 
that  would  have  injured  others,  because  of  the  kindly  influence 
of  these  unselfish  women  and  because  of  the  memory  of  a  sister, 
or  an  aunt  whose  sacrificing  life  was  thus  a  rebuke  to  his  fool- 
ish selfishness.  Other  women  learned  something  of  the  vanity 
of  human  things  by  learning  to  value  the  character  of  these 
Poor  Clares  and  realizing  how  much  of  happiness  came  to  them 
from  the  accomplishment  of  their  simple  duties.  Professor 
Osier  said,  in  his  lecture  on  Science  and  Immortality,  of  these 
self-forgetting  ones : — "The  serene  faith  of  Socrates  with  the 
cup  of  Hemlock  at  his  lips,  the  heroic  devotion  of  a  St.  Francis 
or  a  St.  Teresa,  but  more  often  for  each  one  of  us  the  beau- 
tiful life  of  some  good  woman  whose — 

Eyes  are  homes  of  silent  prayer, 
Whose  loves  in  higher  love  endure, 


324  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

do  more  to  keep  alive  among  the  Laodiceans  a  belief  in  im- 
mortality than  all  the  preaching  in  the  land."  This  is  what 
St.  Clare  accomplished  for  her  own  generation  and  her  influ- 
ence is  still  a  great  living  force  in  the  world. 

What  especially  should  attract  the  attention  of  the  modern 
time  is  the  perfect  basis  of  equality  on  which  the  Franciscan 
and  Dominican  orders  of  men  and  of  women  were  organized. 
Each  community  had  the  opportunity  to  elect  its  own  superiors. 
The  rules  were  practically  the  same  for  the  first  (for  men) 
and  the  second  (for  women)  order  of  St.  Francis,  except  that 
while  the  first  order  were  supposed  to  live  on  alms  collected  by 
begging  from  door  to  door,  this  menial  obligation  was  not  im- 
posed upon  the  women,  who  were  expected  to  be  supported  by 
alms  brought  to  their  convents  by  the  faithful,  and  by  the  labor 
of  their  own  hands.  This  equality  of  men  and  women  in  the 
monastic  establishments  became  widespread  after  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  and  made  itself  felt  in  the  social  order  of  the 
time  as  a  factor  for  feminine  uplift.  Undoubtedly  Saint 
Clare's  work  in  the  foundation  of  the  second  order  of  St.  Fran- 
cis must  be  held  responsible  to  no  small  degree  for  this.  Before 
her  death,  there  were  half  a  dozen  scions  of  royal  families 
in  various  parts  of  Europe  who  had  become  members  of  her 
order,  and  literally  hundreds  of  the  daughters  of  the  nobility, 
many  of  them  of  high  rank,  had  put  off  their  dignity  and  posi- 
tion in  the  world,  to  become  poor  daughters  of  Saint  Clare. 
They  did  so  for  the  peace  and  the  happiness  of  the  vocation,  and 
the  opportunity  to  seek  their  souls  and  live  their  lives  in  their 
own  quiet  way,  which  her  convents  afforded  them. 

After  Saint  Clare,  the  best  known  woman  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  is  undoubtedly  Saint  Elizabeth  of  Hungary,  of  whom 
the  world  knows  some  pretty  legends,  while  the  serious  his- 
torian recognizes  that  she  was  the  first  settlement  worker  of 
history.  As  a  child  she  wandered  down  from  the  castle  walls 
in  which  she  lived  and  saw  the  poor  in  their  suffering.  She 
felt  so  much  for  them  that  she  stripped  herself  of  most  of  her 
garments  and  finally  even  of  her  shoes  in  order  to  clothe  them. 
When  she  was  taken  to  task  for  this,  she  said  that  she  had  suf- 
fered whatever  inconvenience  there  was  in  it  only  for  a  few 
minute's  while  the  poor  had  suffered  all  their  lives.  She  became 


ST.     ELIZABETH'S    (MARBURG) 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  325 

the  wife  of  the  Duke  of  Thuringia,  and  there  were  three  years 
of  ideal  happiness  with  her  husband  and  her  children.  When 
he  went  away  on  the  Crusade  she  gave  herself  up  to  the  care 
of  the  poor.  When  he  died,  though  she  was  only  twenty, 
and  according  to  tradition  one  of  the  handsomest  women  of  her 
time,  she  devoted  herself  still  more  to  her  poor  and  even  went 
to  live  among  them.  She  tried  to  teach  them,  as  do  the  settle- 
ment workers  of  the  modern  time,  something  of  the  true  sig- 
nificance of  life,  to  bring  them  to  realize  to  some  degree  at 
least,  that  so  many  of  the  things  they  so  vainly  desire  are  not 
worth  thinking  about,  but  that  happiness  consists  in  lopping 
off  one's  desires  rather  than  trying  vainly,  as  it  must  ever  be, 
to  satisfy  them.  It  is  no  wonder  that  throughout  all  Ger- 
many she  came  to  be  called  "the  dear  St.  Elizabeth."  Literally 
millions  of  women  since  her  time  have  read  entranced  the  story 
of  her  beautiful  devotion  to  charity,  and  have  been  incited 
by  her  example  to  do  more  and  more  for  the  poor  around  them. 
Those  who  know  it  only  through  Kingsley's,  "The  Saint's 
Tragedy,"  though  this  is  disfigured  by  many  failures  to  un- 
derstand parts  of  her  career  and  her  environment,  can  scarcely 
fail  to  realize  that  hers  was  one  of  the  world's  sublimely  beau- 
tiful characters.  All  she  attempted  in  the  thorny  paths  of  char- 
ity was  accomplished  in  such  a  practical  way  that  the  amount 
of  good  done  was  almost  incalculable.  The  simple  recital  of 
what  she  did  as  it  has  often  been  told,  is  the  story  of  a  great 
individuality  that  impressed  itself  deeply  upon  its  generation 
and  left  the  example  of  a  precious  life  to  act  as  a  leaven  for 
good  in  the  midst  of  the  social  fermentations  of  succeeding 
generations. 

Yet  Elizabeth  succeeded  in  accomplishing  all  this  in  spite  of 
the  fact  that  she  was  born  the  daughter  of  a  king  and  married 
the  reigning  prince  of  one  of  the  most  important  ducal  houses 
in  Germany.  One  would  expect  to  find  that  her  life  had  been 
long,  so  many  traditions  have  gathered  around  her  name.  She 
was  twenty  when  her  husband  died,  and  she  survived  him  only 
four  years.  Literally  she  had  accomplished  a  long  space  in  a 
short  time  and  her  generation  in  raising  in  her  honor  the 
charming  Gothic  Cathedral  at  Marburg,  one  of  the  most  beau- 


326  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tiful  in  Germany,  was  honoring  itself  nobly  as  well  as  her.  It 
is  the  greatest  monument  to  a  woman  in  all  the  world. 
/The  next  great  woman  of  the  century  also  belonged  to  a 
reigning  family  and  is  for  obvious  historical  reasons  better 
known,  perhaps,  than  her  Saint  contemporaries.  This  was 
Blanche,  daughter  of  the  King  of  Castile,  but  intimately  re- 
lated to  the  English  royal  family.  Married  to  Louis  VIII  of 
France  she  is  known  principally  as  the  mother  of  Louis  IX. 
She  ruled  France  for  many  years  while  her  boy  was  a  minor 
and  when  he  came  to  the  age,  when  he  might  ordinarily  as- 
sume the  reins  of  government,  he  voluntarily  permitted  his 
mother  to  continue  her  regency  for  some  time  longer.  France 
was  probably  happier  under  her  than  under  any  ruler  that  the 
country  has  ever  had  with  the  possible  exception  of  her  son 
Louis.  She  succeeded  in  suppressing  to  a  great  extent  the 
quarrels  so  common  among  the  nobility,  she  strengthened  and 
centralized  the  power  of  the  crown,  she  began  the  correction 
of  abuses  in  the  administration  of  justice  which  her,  son  was  to 
complete  so  well,  she  organized  charity  in  various  ways,  and 
the  court  was  an  example  to  the  kingdom  of  simple  dignified 
life,  without  any  abuse  of  power,  or  wealth,  or  passion.  No 
wonder  that  when  Louis  went  on  the  Crusade,  he  left  his 
mother  to  reign  in  his  stead  confident  that  all  would  go  well. 
If  one  needed  a  demonstration  that  women  can  rule  well  there 
is  an  excellent  example  in  the  life  of  Blanche. 

Personally  she  seems  to  have  had  not  only  an  amiable  but 
a  deeply  intellectual  character.  She  encouraged  education  and 
beautiful  book-making  and  the  Gothic  architecture  which  was 
developing  in  France  so  wonderfully  during  her  period.  Of 
course  she  also  worshipped  her  boy  Louis,  but  how  much  her 
motherly  tenderness  was  tempered  with  the  most  beautiful 
Christian  feeling  can  be  understood  from  the  famous  expres- 
sion attributed  to  her  on  good  authority,  that  she  "would  rather 
see  her  boy  dead  at  her  feet,  than  have  him  commit  a  mortal 
offense  against  his  God  or  his  neighbor."  One  might  almost 
say  that  it  is  no  wonder  that  Louis  became  a  saint.  j  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  he  attributed  to  his  mother  whatever  of  goodness 
there  was  in  himself.  There  is  a  touch  of  humanity  in  the 
picture,  however,  a  trait  that  shows,  that  Blanche  was  a  woman, 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  327 

though  it  is  a  fault  which  draws  our  sympathy  to  her  even 
more  surely  than  if  she  were  the  type  of  perfection  she  might 
have  been  without  it.  She  did  not  get  on  well  with  her 
daughter-in-law  and  one  of  the  trials  of  Louis'  life,  as  we  have 
said,  was  to  keep  the  scales  evenly  balanced  between  his 
mother  and  his  wife,  both  of  whom  he  loved  very  dearly. 
After  Blanche's  life  there  could  be  no  doubt  that  a  woman, 
when  given  the  opportunity,  can  manage  men  and  administer 
government  quite  as  well  as  any  masculine  member  of  the  race, 
and  the  Thirteenth  Century  had  given  another  example  of  its 
power  to  bring  out  what  was  best  in  its  fortunate  children. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  women  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
was  neither  a  Saint  nor  a  member  of  the  nobility,  but  only  the 
wife  of  a  simple  London  merchant.  This  was  Mabel  Rich, 
the  mother  of  Saint  Edmund  of  Canterbury.  Edmund  is  one 
of  the  striking  men  of  a  supreme  century.  He  had  been  a  stu- 
dent at  Paris,  and  later  a  professor  at  Oxford.  Then,  he  be- 
came the  treasurer  of  the  Cathedral  at  Salisbury  about  the  time 
when,  not  a  little  through  his  influence,  that  magnificent  edifice 
was  receiving  the  form  which  was  to  make  it  one  of  the  world's 
great  churches  for  all  time.  Later  he  was  the  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury  and  while  defending  the  rights  of  his  church  and 
his  people,  came  under  the  ban  of  Henry  III,  and  spent  most 
of  the  latter  years  of  his  life  in  exile  on  the  continent.  Ed- 
mund insisted  that  he  owed  more  to  his  mother  than  to  any 
other  single  factor  in  life.  With  her  two  boys,  aged  ten  and 
fourteen,  Mabel  Rich  was  left  to  care  for  the  worldly  concerns 
of  the  household  as  well  as  for  their  education.  When  they 
were  twelve  and  sixteen,  with  many  misgivings  she  sent  them 
off  to  the  University  of  Paris  to  get  their  education.  Edmund 
tells  how  besides  packing  their  linen  very  carefully  she  also 
packed  a  hairshirt  for  each  of  them,  which  they  were  to  wear 
occasionally  according  to  their  promise  to  her,  to  remind  them 
that  they  must  not  look  for  ease  and  comfort  in  life,  above  all 
must  not  yield  to  sensual  pleasures,  but  must  be  ready  to  suf- 
fer many  little  troubles  voluntarily,  in  order  that  they  might 
be  able  to  resist  temptation  when  severer  trials  came.  Mabel 
Rich  believed  in  discipline,  as  a  factor  in  education,  and  thought 
that  character  was  formed  by  habits  of  fortitude  in  resisting 


328  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

petty  annoyances  until,  finally,  even  serious  troubles  were  easy 
to  bear. 

Both  of  her  sons  proved  worthy  of  her  maternal  solicitude. 
Edmund  tells  how  the  poor  around  her  home  in  London  blessed 
her  for  her  charity.  All  during  his  life  the  thought  of  his 
mother  was  uppermost  in  his  mind,  and  in  the  immortality  that 
has  been  given  his  name,  because  of  the  utter  forgetfulness  of 
self  which  characterized  his  life,  his  mother  has  been  associated. 
Unfortunately  details  are  lacking  that  would  show  us  something 
of  the  manner  of  living  of  this  strong  woman  of  the  people,  but 
we  know  enough  to  make  us  realize  that  she  was  a  fine  type 
of  the  Christian  mother,  memory  of  whose  goodness  means 
more  not  only  for  her  children  but  for  all  those  who  come  in 
contact  with  her,  than  all  the  sermons  and  pious  exhortations 
that  they  hear,  and  often,  such  is  the  way  of  human  nature, 
even  than  the  divine  commandments  or  the  personal  conscience 
of  those  whom  she  loves. 

There  were  noble  women  among  the  gentlewomen  of  Eng- 
land at  this  time  too,  and  though  space  will  not  let  us  dwell  on 
them,  at  least  one  must  be  mentioned.  This  is  the  famous 
Isabella,  Countess  of  Arundel,  who  with  a  dignity  which,  Mat- 
thew Paris  says,  was  more  than  that  of  woman,  reproached 
Henry  III  (1252),  when  he  sought  to  browbeat  her.  She 
made  bold  to  tell  the  king,  "You  govern  neither  us  nor 
yourself  well."  On  this  the  king,  with  a  sneer  and  a  grin, 
said  with  a  loud  voice,  "Ho,  ho,  my  lady  countess,  have  the 
noblemen  of  England  granted  you  a  charter  and  struck  a 
bargain  with  you  to  become  their  spokeswoman  because  of 
your  eloquence?"  She  answered,  "My  liege,  the  nobles  have 
made  no  charter,  but  you  and  your  father  have  made  a  charter, 
and  you  have  sworn  to  observe  it  inviolably,  and  yet  many 
times  have  you  extorted  money  from  your  subjects  and  have  not 
kept  your  word.  Where  are  the  liberties  of  England,  often 
reduced  to  writing,  so  often  granted,  so  often  again  denied?"* 

The  question  of  womanly  occupations  apart  from  their  house- 
hold duties  will  be  of  great  interest  to  our  generation. 

A  hint  of  one  form  of  woman's  occupation  has  already  been 

*  Medieval  England,  English  Feudal  Society,    from   the   Norman 
Conquest  to  the  Middle  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  by  Mary  Bateson. 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  329 

given  in  discussing  the  needlework  done  for  the  Cathedrals 
and  especially  the  Cope  of  Ascoli.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  this  was  the  age  not  alone  of  Cathedrals  but  also  of  monas- 
teries and  of  convents.  In  all  of  these  convents  every  effort 
was  made  to  have  whatever  was  associated  with  the  religious 
ceremonial  as  beautiful  as  possible.  Hence  it  was  that  needle- 
work rose  to  a  height  of  accomplishment  such  as  has  never 
been  reached  since  according  to  the  best  authorities,  and  many 
examples  of  it  have  come  down  to  us  to  confirm  such  an  opin- 
ion. This  needlework  was  done  not  only  for  religious  purposes, 
however,  but  also  as  presents  for  Kings  and  Queens  and  the 
nobility,  and  such  presents  proved  to  be  exemplars  of  artistic 
beauty  that  must  have  helped  to  raise  the  taste  of  the  time.  This 
was  essentially  woman's  work,  and  in  their  distant  castles  the 
women  of  the  households  of  the  nobility  occupied  themselves 
with  it  to  much  better  effect  than  their  sisters  of  the  modern 
time  with  the  grievous  burden  of  their  so-called  social  duties. 

Miss  Bateson*  has  given  a  pretty,  yet  piquant  picture  of 
woman  at  these  occupations.  She  says: — "There  are  not 
wanting  Thirteenth  Century  satires  to  tell  the  usual  story  of 
female  levities,  and  of  female  devotion  to  the  needle,  to  German 
work  and  pierced  work,  Saracen  work  and  combed  work,  cut- 
out work  and  wool-work,  and  a  multitude  of  other  "works" 
to  which  the  clue  seems  to  be  now  wholly  lost.  Whilst  the  wo- 
men are  thus  engaged,  the  one  who  knows  most  reads  to  them, 
the  others  listen  attentively,  and  do  not  sleep  as  they  do  at  mass, 
'pur  la  prise  de  vanite  dont  ont  grant  leesce  (joy)/  The  'opus 
anglicum'  consisted  of  chain-stitch  in  circles,  with  hollows, 
made  by  a  heated  iron  rod,  to  represent  shadows.  A  cope  of 
this  work  was  made  by  Rose  de  Burford  at  Edward  IFs  order, 
and  sent  to  Rome.  One,  known  as  the  Syon  cope,  passed  into 
the  possession  of  the  nuns  of  Syon,  Isleworth,  and  can  be  seen 
at  the  Victoria  and  Albert  Museum." 

Another  form  of  woman's  work  that  came  to  prominence 
during  the  century  was  the  service  in  hospitals.  While  the 
records  of  the  hospitals  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  which  under  Inno- 
cent Third's  fostering  care  spread  so  widely  throughout  Europe 
in  this  century,  are  mainly  occupied  with  the  institutions  of 
*  Ibidem. 


330  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  Brothers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  there  were  many  hospitals 
under  the  care  of  women,  and  indeed  there  was  an  almost 
universally  accepted  idea,  that  women  patients  and  obstetrical 
cases  should  be  cared  for  by  women  rather  than  men.  It  is 
easy  to  make  little  of  the  hospitals  of  this  time  but  any  such 
thought  will  be  the  result  of  ignorance  rather  than  of  any 
serious  attempt  to  know  what  was  actually  accomplished. 
The  sisters'  hospitals  soon  usurped  the  most  prominent  place 
in  the  life  of  the  time  and  during  succeeding  centuries  gradu- 
ally replaced  those  which  had  been  originally  under  the  control 
of  men.  It  was  recognized  that  nursing  was  a  much  more 
suitable  occupation  for  the  gentler  sex  and  that  there  were 
many  less  abuses  than  when  men  were  employed.  The  suc- 
cess of  these  hospitals  in  gradually  eradicating  leprosy  and  in 
keeping  down  the  death-rate  from  St.  Anthony's  fire,  or  ery- 
sipelas, shows  how  capable  they  were  of  accomplishing  great 
humanitarian  work. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  story  of  woman's 
position  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  that  at  the  Italian 
universities  at  least,  co-education  was  not  only  admitted  in 
principle  but  also  in  practice,  and  many  women  were  in  atten- 
dance at  the  universities.  In  the  West  of  Europe  this  feature 
did  not  exist.  It  is  a  startling  comment  on  how  comparatively 
trivial  a  thing  may  change  the  course  of  history,  that  the 
lamentable  Heloise  and  Abelard  incident  at  the  University  of 
Paris  during  the  Twelfth  Century,  precluded  all  subsequent 
possibility  of  the  admission  of  women  students  to  the  Univer- 
sity of  Paris.  Oxford,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  formed  by 
the  withdrawal  of  students  from  the  University  of  Paris,  and 
the  same  tradition  was  maintained.  Cambridge  was  a  grand- 
daughter of  the  University  of  Paris  and  the  French  and  Spanish 
universities  must  all  be  considered  as  standing  in  the  relation 
of  its  direct  descendants.  The  unfortunate  experience  at  Paris 
shaped  the  policy  as  to  the  co-education  of  the  sexes  for  all 
these.  It  would  have  been  too  much  to  expect  that  university 
authorities  would  take  the  risks  which  had  been  so  clearly 
demonstrated  even  with  regard  to  a  distinguished  professor, 
and  so  co-education  was  excluded. 

It  is  not  easy  to  say  what  proportion  of  women  there  were 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  331 

in  attendance  at  the  university  of  Bologna  during  the  Thir- 
teenth, Century.  Apparently  it  should  not  be  difficult  to  take 
the  lists  of  the  matriculates  as  far  as  they  have  been  preserved 
and  by  a  little  calculation  obtain  rather  exact  figures.  Italy, 
like  most  of  the  Latin  countries,  differs  from  the  Teutonic 
regions  in  not  being  quite  so  exact  in  the  distribution  of  names 
to  the  different  sexes,  that  the  first  name  inevitably  determines 
whether  the  individual  is  male  or  female.  It  is  not  an  unusual 
thing  even  at  the  present  day  for  a  man  to  have  as  a  first  name 
in  Italy,  or  France,  or  Spain,  the  equivalent  of  our  name  Mary. 
On  the  other  hand,  not  a  few  girls  are  called  by  men's  names 
and  without  the  feminine  termination  which  is  so  distinctive 
among  the  English  speaking  peoples.  In  the  olden  times  this 
was  still  more  the  case.  Until  very  recently  at  least,  if  not 
now,  every  child  born  in  Venice  was  given  two  names  at  its 
baptism — Maria  and  Giovanni — in  honor  of  the  two  great  pat- 
ron saints  of  the  city  and  then  the  parents  might  add  further 
names  if  they  so  desired.  A  matriculation  list  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Bologna  then,  tells  very  little  that  is  absolute  with  re- 
gard to  the  sex  of  the  matriculates. 

All  that  we  know  for  sure  is  that  there  were  women  students 
at  the  University  of  Bologna  apparently  from  the  beginning 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  that  some  of  them  secured 
the  distinction  of  being  made  Professors.  Of  one  of  these  there 
is  a  pretty  legend  told,  which  seems  to  illustrate  the  fact  that 
charming  young  women  of  profound  intellectual  qualities  did 
not  lose  the  characteristic  modesty  and  thoughtfulness  for 
others  of  their  sex,  because  of  their  elevation  to  university  pro- 
fessorship. This  young  woman,  Maria  di  Novella,  when 
only  twenty-five  became  the  Professor  of  mathematics  at  the 
University  of  Bologna.  According  to  tradition  she  was  very 
pretty  and  as  is  usual  in  life  was  not  unaware  of  that  happy 
accident.  She  feared  that  her  good  looks  might  disturb  the 
thoughts  of  her  students  during  her  lessons  and  accordingly 
she  delivered  her  lectures  from  behind  a  curtain.  The  story 
may,  of  course,  be  only  a  myth.  One  of  the  best  woman  edu- 
cators that  I  know  once  said  to  me,  that  if  the  tradition  with 
regard  to  her  beauty  were  true,  then  she  doubted  the  rest  of 
the  story,  but  then  women  are  not  always  the  best  judges  of  the 


332  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

actions  of  other  women  and  especially  is  this  true  when  there 
is  question  of  a  grave  and  learned  elderly  woman  passing 
judgment  on  a  young  and  handsome  professor  of  mathematics. 

The  Italians  became  so  much  impressed  with  the  advisability 
of  permitting  women  to  study  at  the  universities,  that  a  certain 
amount  of  co-education  has  existed  all  down  the  centuries  in 
Italy  and  not  a  century  has  passed  since  the  Thirteenth,  which 
has  not  chronicled  the  presence  of  at  least  one  distinguished 
woman  professor  at  some  Italian  university.  Indeed  it  was 
doubtless  the  traditional  position  of  tolerance  in  this  matter 
that  made  it  seem  quite  natural  for  women,  when  the  Renais- 
sance period  came  around,  to  take  their  places  beside  their 
brothers  and  their  cousins  in  the  schools  where  the  new  learn- 
ing was  being  taught. 

It  may  be  rather  difficult  for  some  to  understand  how  with 
this  opening  wedge  for  the  higher  education  of  women  well 
placed,  the  real  opportunity  for  widespread  feminine  education 
should  only  have  come  in  our  own  time.  This  last  idea,  how- 
ever, which  would  represent  ours  as  the  only  generation  which 
has  given  women  adequate  opportunities  for  intellectual  devel- 
opment, is  one  of  those  self-complacent  bits  of  flattery  of  our- 
selves and  our  own  period  that  is  so  irritatingly  characteristic 
of  recent  times.  There  have  been  at  least  three  times  in  the 
world's  history  before  our  own  when  as  many  women  as 
wanted  them,  in  the  class  most  interested  in  educational  mat- 
ters, were  given  the  opportunities  for  the  higher  education. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  whenever  there  have  been  novelties  intro- 
duced into  educational  systems,  women  have  demanded  and 
quite  naturally — since,  "What  a  good  woman  wants,"  said  a 
modern  saint,  "is  the  will  of  God" — have  obtained  the  privi- 
lege of  sharing  the  educational  opportunities  of  the  time. 
This  was  true  in  Charlemagne's  time  when  the  women  of  the 
court  attended  the  lectures  in  the  traveling  palace  school  the 
great  Charles  founded  and  fostered.  It  was  true  four  centur- 
ies later,  as  we  have  seen,  when  a  great  change  in  educational 
methods  was  introduced  with  the  foundation  of  the  universi- 
ties. It  was  exemplified  again  when  the  "New  Learning"  came 
in  and  the  study  of  the  classics  took  the  place  of  the  long  hours 
spent  in  scholastic  disputation,  that  had  previously  occupied 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY*.  333 

so  much  university  attention.  In  our  own  time  it  was  the  in- 
troduction of  the  study  of  the  social  sciences  particularly, 
with  the  consequent  appearance  of  many  novelties  in  the  edu- 
cational curriculum,  that  once  more  was  the  signal  for  women 
asking  and  quite  naturally  obtaining  educational  privileges. 

Each  of  the  previous  experiences  in  the  matter  of  feminine 
education  has  been  followed  by  a  considerable  period  during 
which  there  was  a  distinct  incuriousness  on  the  part  of  women 
in  educational  matters.  Of  course  that  is  only  an  analogy  and 
though  history  is  worth  studying,  only  because  the  lessons  of 
the  past  are  the  warnings  of  the  future,  yet  this  does  not  fore- 
tell a.  lessening  of  feminine  interest  in  educational  matters, 
after  a  few  generations  of  experience  of  its  vanity  to  make  up 
to  them  for  the  precious  special  privileges 'of  their  nature,  the 
proper  enjoyment  and  exercise  of  which  it  is  so  likely  to  hamper. 
It  would  be  interesting  to  know  just  why  feminine  education, 
after  a  period  of  efflorescence  during  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
retrograded  during  the  next  century.  There  have  been  some 
ungallant  explanations  offered,  which  we  mention  merely  be- 
cause of  their  historical  interest  but  without  any  hint  of  their 
having  any  real  significance  in  the  matter. 

A  distinguished  German  educational  authority  has  called 
attention  to  the  fact  that  a  well-known  prepared  food,  for 
which  Bologna  is  famous,  is  first  heard  of  about  the  time  that 
the  higher  education  for  women  came  into  vogue  at  the  Italian 
universities.  Towards  the  end  of  the  same  century  a  special 
kind  of  pudding,  since  bearing  the  name  of  its  native  city,  Bo- 
logna, which  might  very  well  have  taken  the  place  of  an  ordinary 
dessert,  also  began  to  come  into  prominence.  This  German 
writer  suggests  then,  that  possibly  the  serving  of  meals  con- 
sisting of  these  forms  of  prepared  food,  which  did  not  require 
much  household  drudgery  and  did  not  necessitate  the  bending 
over  the  kitchen  range  or  whatever  took  its  place  in  those  days, 
may  have  led  the  men  to  grumble  about  the  effects  of  the  high- 
er education.  After  all,  he  adds,  though  the  women  get  what- 
ever they  want,  when  they  ask  for  it  seriously,  if  it  proves  af- 
ter a  time  that  the  men  do  not  want  them  to  have  it,  then 
women  lose  interest  and  care  for  it  no  longer.  This,  of  course, 
must  be  taken  with  the  proverbial  grain  of  salt,  though  it  illus- 


334  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

trates  certain  phases  of  the  domestic  life  of  the  time  as  well  as 
affording  a  possible  glimpse  into  the  inner  circle  of  the  family 
life. 

The  real  story  of  woman's  intellectual  position  in  the  cen- 
tury is  to  be  found  in  its  literature.  How  deep  was  the  gen- 
eral culture  of  the  women  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  in  Italy 
at  least,  can  be  judged  from  the  Sonnets  of  Dante  and  his 
friends  to  their  loved  ones  at  the  end  of  this  century.  Some 
of  the  most  beautiful  poetry  that  was  ever  written  was  in- 
spired by  these  women  and  like  the  law  of  hydrostatics,  it  is 
one  of  the  rules  of  the  history  of  poetry,  that  inspiration  never 
rises  higher  than  its  source  and  that  poetry  addressed  to  women 
is  always  the  best  index  of  the  estimation  in  which  they  are 
held,  the  reflection  of  the  highest  qualities  of  the  objects  to 
which  it  is  addressed.  Anyone  who  reads  certain  of  the  son- 
nets of  Dante,  or  of  his  friends  Guido  Cavalcanti  or  Gino  da 
Pistoia  or  Dante  da  Maiano,  will  find  ready  assurance  of  the 
high  state  of  culture  and  of  intellectual  refinement  that  must 
have  existed  among  the  women  to  whom  they  were  dedicated. 
This  same  form  of  reasoning  will  apply  also  with  regard  to 
the  women  of  the  South  of  France  to  whom  the  Troubadours 
addressed  their  poetry;  to  those  of  the  north  of  France  who 
were  greeted  by  the  Trouveres ;  and  those  of  the  south  of  Ger- 
many for  whom  the  Minnesingers  tuned  their  lyres  and  in- 
voked the  Muses  to  enable  them  to  sing  their  praises  properly. 
It  would  seem  sometimes  to  be  forgotten  that  poetry  generally 
is  written  much  more  for  women  than  for  men.  Everyone 
realizes  that  for  one  man  who  has  read  Tennyson's  "Idyls  of  the 
King"  there  are  probably  five  women  to  whom  they  have  been 
a  source  of  delight.  When  we  think  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
as  not  affording  opportunities  of  intellectual  culture  for  its  wo- 
men, we  should  ask  ourselves  where  then  did  the  Meistersingers 
and  the  poets  of  England,  Germany  and  France  who  told  their 
romantic  tales  in  verse  find  an  audience,  if  it  was  not  among  the 
women.  The  stories  selected  by  the  Meistersingers  are  just 
those  which  proved  so  popular  to  feminine  readers  of  Tenny- 
son in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  and  the  chosen  subjects  of  inter- 
est in  the  stories  show  that  men  and  women  have  not  changed 
much  during  the  intervening  centuries.  The  literature  of  any 


THE  WOMEN  OF  THE  CENTURY.  335 

period  reflects  the  interest  of  the  women  in  it  and,  as  interest 
is  itself  an  index  of  intellectual  development,  Thirteenth  'Cen- 
tury literature  must  be  taken  as  the  vivid  reflection  of  the 
cultural  character  of  the  women  of  the  time,  and  this  is  of  it- 
self the  highest  possible  tribute  to  their  intelligence  and  edu- 
cation. 

On  the  other  hand  the  best  possible  testimony  to  the  estima- 
tion of  women  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  is  to  be  found  in 
the  attitude  of  the  men  of  the  generations  towards  them,  as 
it  is  clearly  to  be  seen  in  the  literature  of  the  time.  In  the  Holy 
Graal,  the  Cid,  the  Minnesingers  and  the  Meistersingers,  wo- 
man occupies  the  higher  place  in  life  and  it  is  recognized  that 
she  is  the  highest  incentive  to  good,  unfortunately  also  some- 
times to  evil,  but  always  the  best  reward  that  men  can  have 
for  their  exertions  in  a  great  cause.  The  supreme  tribute  to 
woman  comes  at  the  end  of  the  century  in  Dante's  apotheosis 
of  her  in  the  Divine  Comedy.  In  this  it  is  a  woman  who  inspires, 
a  woman  who  leads,  a  woman  who  is  the  reward  of  man's  as- 
pirations, and  though  the  symbolism  may  be  traced  to  philoso- 
phy, the  influence  of  an  actual  woman  in  it  all  is  sure  beyond 
all  doubt.  Nor  must  it  be  thought  that  it  was  merely  in  this 
highest  flight  of  his  imagination  that  this  greatest  of  poets  ex- 
pressed such  lofty  sentiments  with  regard  to  women.  Anyone 
who  thinks  this  does  not  know  Dante's  minor  poems,  which 
contain  to  women  in  the  flesh  and  above  all  to  one  of  them,  the 
most  wonderful  tributes  that  have  ever  been  paid  to  woman. 
Take  this  one  of  his  sonnets  for  instance. 

So  gentle  and  so  fair  she  seems  to  be, 
My  Lady,  when  she  others  doth  salute, 
That  every  tongue  becomes,  all  trembling,  mute, 

And  every  eye  is  half  afraid  to  see; 

She  goes  her  way  and  hears  men's  praises  free, 
Clothed  in  a  garb  of  kindness,  meek  and  low, 
And  seems  as  if  from  heaven  she  came,  to  show 

Upon  the  earth  a  wondrous  mystery: 

To  one  who  looks  on  her  she  seems  so  kind, 

That  through  the  eye  a  sweetness  fills  the  heart, 
Which  only  he  can  know  who  doth  it  try. 


336  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

.  And  through  her  face  there  breatheth  from  her  mind 

A  spirit  sweet  and  full  of  Love's  true  art, 
Which  to  the  soul  saith,  as  it  cometh,  "Sigh." 

It  will  be  noted  that  though  this  contains  the  highest  possi- 
ble praise  of  the  woman  whom  he  loved,  it  has  not  a  single 
reference  to  any  of  her  physical  perfections,  or  indeed  to  any 
of  those  charms  that  poets  usually  sing.  We  have  already 
called  attention  to  this,  that  it  is  not  the  beauty  of  her  face  or 
her  figure  that  has  attracted  him,  but  the  charm  of  her  char- 
acter, which  all  others  must  admire — which  even  women  do 
not  envy,  it  is  so  beautiful — that  constitutes  the  supreme 
reason  for  Dante's  admiration.  Nor  must  it  be  thought  that 
this  is  a  unique  example  of  Dante's  attitude  in  this  matter; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  the  constant  type  of  his  expression  of 
feeling.  The  succeeding  sonnet  in  his  collection  is  probably 
quite  as  beautiful  as  the  first  quoted,  and  yet  is  couched  in 
similar  terms.  It  will  be  found  in  the  chapter  on  Dante  the 
Poet.  Need  we  say  more  to  prove  that  the  women  of  the 
century  were  worthy  of  the  men  and  of  the  supreme  time  in 
which  they  lived;  that  they  were  the  fit  intellectual  com- 
panions of  perhaps  the  greatest  generation  of  men  that  ever 
lived? 


STONE   CARVING    (AMIENS) 


CITY  HOSPITALS.  337 

XXI 

CITY  HOSPITALS— ORGANIZED  CHARITY. 


While  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  engaged  in  solving  the 
problems  of  the  higher  education  and  of  technical  education  for 
the  masses,  and  was  occupied  so  successfully,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  the  questions  of  the  rights  of  man  and  the  development  of 
law  and  of  liberty,  other  and  more  directly  social  and  humani- 
tarian works  were  not  neglected.  There  had  been  hospitals  in 
existence  from  even  before  the  Christian-  era,  but  they  had  been 
intended  rather  for  the  chronic  ailments  and  as  the  name  im- 
plies, for  the  furnishing  of  hospitality  to  strangers  and  others 
who  had  for  the  time  no  habitation,  than  for  the  care  of  the 
acutely  ill.  In  the  country  places  there  was  a  larger  Christian 
charity  which  led  people  to  care  even  for  the  stranger,  and  there 
was  a  sense  of  human  duty  that  was  much  more  binding  than 
in  the  modern  world.  The  acutely  ill  were  not  infrequently 
taken  into  the  houses  of  even  those  who  did  not  know  them, 
and  cared  for  with  a  solicitude  difficult  to  understand  in  this 
colder  time.  This  was  not  so  much  typical  of  the  times,  how- 
ever, as  of  the  social  conditions,  since  we  have  many  stories 
of  such  events  in  our  colonial  days. 

In  the  cities,  however,  which  began  more  and  more  to  be  a 
feature  of  life  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  though  they  counted 
their  inhabitants  only  by  a  few  thousands  where  ours  count 
them  by  hundreds  of  thousands,  the  need  of  some  other  method 
of  caring  for  such  cases  made  itseli  distinctly  felt.  At  the 
end  of  the  Twelfth  and  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  cen- 
turies this  need  became  demandingly  manifest,  and  the  conse- 
quence was  a  movement  that  proved  to  be  of  great  and  far- 
reaching  practical  benevolence.  It  is  to  the  first  Pope  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  Innocent  III.,  that  we  owe  the  modern  city 
hospital  as  we  have  it  at  the  present  time,  with  its  main  purpose 
to  care  for  the  acutely  ill  who  may  have  no  one  to  take  care  of 
them  properly,  as  well  as  for  those  who  have  been  injured  or 


338  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

who  have  been  picked  up  on  the  street  and  whose  friends  are 
not  in  a  position  to  care  for  them. 

The  deliberateness  with  which  Innocent  III.  set  about  the 
establishment  of  the  mother  city  hospital  of  the  world,  is  a 
striking  characteristic  of  the  genius  of  the  man  and  an  excellent 
illustration  of  the  practical  character  of  the  century  of  which 
he  is  so  thoroughly  representative. 

Pope  Innocent  recognized  the  necessity  for  the  existence  of 
a  city  hospital  in  Rome  and  by  inquiry  determined  that  the 
model  hospital  for  this  purpose  existed  down  at  Montpelier  in 
connection  with  the  famous  medical  school  of  the  university 
there.  Montpelier  had  succeeded  to  the  heritage  of  the  distin- 
guished reputation  in  medical  matters  which  had  been  enjoyed 
by  Salernum,  not  far  from  Naples,  during  the  Ninth,  Tenth, 
and  Eleventh  centuries.  The  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  have 
always  been  recognized  as  possessing  a  climate  especially  suit- 
able for  invalids  and  with  the  diminution  of  the  influence  of 
the  Salernitan  school,  a  transfer  of  its  prestige  to  Montpelier, 
where  the  close  relationship  with  Spain  had  given  the  medical 
schools  the  advantage  of  intimate  contact  with  the  medicine  of 
the  Arabs,  is  not  a  matter  of  surprise.  At  Montpelier  the  hos- 
pital arrangements  made  by  Guy  de  Montpelier  were  especially 
efficient.  The  hospital  of  which  he  had  charge  was  under  the 
care  of  the  members  of  the  order  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Pope  Innocent  summoned  Guy,  or  Guido  as  he  was  known 
after  this,  to  Rome  and  founded  for  him  the  hospital  of  the 
Holy  Spirit  in  the  Borgo,  not  far  from  St.  Peter's,  where  it 
still  exists.  This  was  the  mother  and  model  hospital  for  the 
world.  Visitors  to  Rome  saw  it,  and  could  not  fail  to  admire 
its  great  humanitarian  work.  Bishops  from  all  over  the  world 
on  their  official  visits  to  the  head  of  the  Church,  admired  the 
policy  under  which  the  hospital  was  conducted,  recognized  the 
interest  of  the  Pope  in  it,  and  went  back  to  their  homes  to 
organize  institutions  of  the  same  kind.  How  many  of  these 
were  established  in  various  parts  of  Europe  is  hard  to  de- 
termine. Virchow  in  his  History  of  tke  Foundations  of  the 
German  Hospitals,  has  a  list  of  over  one  hundred  towns  in 
Germany  in  which  hospitals  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  or  medical  in- 
stitutions modeled  on  this  hospital  at  Rome  were  founded 


CITY  HOSPITALS.  339 

Many  of  these  towns  were  comparatively  small.  Most  of  them 
contained  at  the  time  less  than  five  thousand  inhabitants,  so 
that  it  can  be  said  without  hesitation,  that  practically  every 
town  of  any  importance,  at  least  in  Germany,  came  under  the 
influence  of  this  great  philanthropic  hospital  movement. 

With  regard  to  other  countries,  it  is  more  difficult  to  de- 
termine the  number  of  places  in  which  such  institutions  were 
established.  As  both  France  and  Italy  were,  however,  much 
more  closely  in  touch  with  the  Holy  See  at  this  time,  it  would 
be  surprising  if  they  had  not  been  affected  as  much  as  Germany 
by  the  Pope's  enthusiasm  in  the  matter.  We  do  know  that  in 
various  large  cities,  as  in  Florence,  Siena,  Paris  and  London, 
there  was  a  development  of  existing  hospitals  and  the  establish- 
ment of  new  ones,  that  points  to  a  distinct  community  of  interest 
in  the  hospital  movement.  At  Paris,  the  Hotel  Dieu  was  moved 
from  the  Petit  Pont,  where  it  had  been,  to  its  present  situation 
and  received  large  extensions  in  size  and  in  usefulness.  It  was 
at  this  time,  particularly,  that  it  received  donations  for  endow- 
ment purposes  that  would  enable  it  to  be  self-supporting.  A 
number  of  bequests  of  property,  the  rent  of  which  was  to  be 
paid  to  the  hopsital,  were  made,  and  the  details  of  some  of  these 
bequests  have  an  interest  of  their  own.  Houses  were  not 
numbered  at  this  time  but  were  distinguished  by  various  signs, 
usually  figures  of  different  kinds  that  formed  part  of  their 
facade.  The  Hotel  Dieu  acquired  the  houses  with  the  image 
of  St.  Louis,  with  the  sign  of  the  golden  lion  of  Flanders,  with 
the 'image  of  the  butterfly,  with  the  group  of  the  three  monkeys, 
with  the  image  of  the  wolf,  with  the  image  of  the  iron  lion,  with 
the  cross  of  gold,  with  the  chimneys,  etc.  The  Hotel  Dieu,  in- 
deed, seems  to  have  become  practically  a  fully  endowed  institu- 
tion during  the  course  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  for  there  are 
apparently  no  records  of  special  revenues  voted  by  the  city  or 
the  king,  though  there  are  such  records  with  regard  to  other 
places.  For  instance  the  Hospital  of  St.  Louis  received  the 
right  to  collect  a  special  tax  on  all  the  salt  that  came  into 
the  city. 

In  England  the  hospital  movement  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century  is  evidently  quite  as  active  as  in  Germany,  at  least  as 
far  as  the  records  go.  These  refer  mainly  to  London  and  show 


340  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES, 

that  the  influence  of  the  work  of  Innocent  III.  and  his  enthusi- 
asm was  felt  in  the  English  capital.  The  famous  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's Hospital  in  London  had  been  a  Priory  founded  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Twelfth  Century,  which  took  care  of  the  poor 
and  the  ailing,  but  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
it  became  more  frankly  a  hospital  in  the  modern  sense  of  the 
word.  St.  Thomas'  Hospital,  which  remains  to  the  present  day 
one  of  the  great  medical  institutions  of  London,  was  founded 
by  Richard,  Prior  of  Bermondsey,  in  1213.  Bethlehem  or  Bed- 
lam, which  afterwards  became  a  hospital  for  the  insane,  was 
founded  about  the  middle  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  name 
Bedlam  is  a  corruption  of  Bethlehem,  since  adopted  into. the 
English  language  to  express  a  place  where  fools  do  congregate. 
Bridewell  and  Christ's  Hospital,  which  were  the  other  two  of 
the  institutions  long  known  as  the  five  Royal  Hospitals  of  Lon- 
don, also  seem  either  to  have  been  founded,  or  to  have  received 
a  great  stimulus  and  reorganization  in  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
but  both  ceased  after  some  time  to  be  places  for  the  reception 
of  the  ailing  and  became,  one  of  them  a  prison  and  the  other 
a  school. 

The  names  of  some  of  these  institutions  became  associated 
with  that  of  Edward  VI.  about  the  middle  of  the  Sixteenth 
Century.  For  this,  however,  there  was  no  proper  justification, 
since,  at  most,  all  that  was  accomplished  within  the  reign  of 
the  boy  king,  was  the  reestablishment  of  institutions  formerly 
in  existence  which  had  been  confiscated  under  the  laws  of 
Henry  VIII.,  but  the  necessity  for  whose  existence  had  been 
made  very  clear,  because  of  the  suffering  entailed  upon  the 
many  ailing  poor  by  the  fact,  that  in  their  absence  there  was 
nowhere  for  them  to  go  to  be  cared  for.  As  Gairdner  points 
out  in  his  History  of  the  English  Church  in  the  Sixteenth  Cen- 
tury, "Edward  has  left  a  name  in  connection  with  charities  and 
education  which  critical  scholars  find  to  be  little  justified  by 
fact."  The  supposed  foundation  of  St.  Thomas'  Hospital  was 
only  the  reestablishment  of  this  institution,  and  even  when  it 
was  granted  by  him  to  the  citizens  of  London,  this  was  not,  as 
Gairdner  says,  "without  their  paying  for  it." 

How  much  all  this  hospital  movement  owes  to  Innocent  III. 
will  be  best  appreciated  from  Virchow's  account  of  the  German 


CITY  HOSPITALS.  341 

hospitals,  the  great  German  scientist  not  being  one  of  those 
at  all  likely  to  exaggerate,  the  beneficent  influence  of  the  Popes. 
He  says : 

"The  main  cause  decisive  in  influencing  and  arousing  interest 
of  the  people  of  the  time  in  the  hospitals  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
was  the  Papal  enthusiasm  in  the  matter.  The  beginning  of 
their  history  is  connected  with  the  name  of  that  Pope,  who 
made  the  boldest  and  farthest-reaching  attempt  to  gather  the 
sum  of  human  interest  into  the  organization  of  the  Catholic 
Church.  The  hospitals  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were  one  of  the 
many  means  by  which  Innocent  III.  thought  to  bind  humanity 
to  the  Holy  See.  And  surely  it  was  one  of  the  most  effective. 
Was  it  not  calculated  to  create  the  most  profound  impression, 
to  see  how  the  mighty  Pope  who  humbled  emperors  and  de- 
posed kings,  who  was  the  unrelenting  adversary  of  the  Albi- 
genses,  turned  his  eyes  sympathetically  upon  the  poor  and  sick, 
sought  the  helpless  and  the  neglected  on  the  streets,  and  saved 
the  illegitimate  children  from  death  in  the  waters.  There  is 
something  conciliating  and  fascinating  in  the  fact  that  at  the 
very  same  time  at  which  the  Fourth  Crusade  was  inaugurated 
through  his  influence,  the  thought  of  founding  a  great  organi- 
zation of  an  essentially  humane  character  to  extend  through- 
out all  Christendom,  was  also  taking  form  in  his  soul ;  and  that 
in  the  same  year  (1204)  in  which  the  new  Latin  Empire  was 
founded  in  Constantinople,  the  newly  erected  hospital  of  the 
Santo  Spirito,  by  the  Old  Bridge  across  the  Tiber,  was  blessed 
and  dedicated  as  the  future  center  of  this  universal  humani- 
tarian organization." 

Virchow,  of  course,  considers  Innocent's  action  as  due  to  the 
entirely  interested  motive  of  binding  the  Catholic  world  to  the 
Holy  See.  Others,  however,  who  have  studied  Innocent's  life 
even  more  profoundly,  have  not  considered  his  purpose  as  due 
to  any  such  mean  motive.  Hurter  who  wrote  a  history  of  Pope 
Innocent  III.,  the  researches  for  which  he  began  as  a  Protestant 
with  the  idea  that  in  the  life  of  this  Pope  better  than  anywhere 
else  the  pretensions  of  the  papacy  could  be  most  effectively  ex- 
posed, but  who  was  so  taken  by  the  character  of  the  man  that 
before  he  completed  his  history  he  had  become  a  Catholic,  looks 
at  it  in  a  very  different  way.  Even  Virchow  himself  quotes 


342  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Hurter's  opinion,  though  not  without  taking  some  exceptions 
to  it.  Hurter  said  with  regard  to  charitable  foundations  in  his 
history  of  Pope  Innocent  III. :  "All  benevolent  institutions 
which  the  human  race  still  enjoys,  all  care  for  the  deserted  and 
needy  through  every  stage  of  suffering  from  the  first  moment 
of  birth  to  the  return  of  the  material  part  to  earth,  have  had 
their  origin  in  the  church.  Some  of  them  directly,  some  of 
them  indirectly  through  the  sentiments  and  feelings  which  she 
aroused,  strengthened  and  vivified  into  action.  The  church 
supplied  for  them  the  model  and  sometimes  even  the  resources ; 
that  these  great  humanitarian  needs  were  not  neglected  and 
their  remedies  not  lacking  in  any  respect  is  essentially  due  to 
her  influence  upon  human  character." 

With  regard  to  this  Virchow  says  that  hospitals  had  existed 
among  the  Arabs  and  among  the  Buddhists  in  the  distant  East, 
"nevertheless,"  he  adds,  "it  may  be  recognized  and  admitted, 
that  it  was  reserved  for  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  and  above 
all  for  Innocent  III.,  to  establish  institutions  for  the  care  of 
those  suffering  from  diseases." 

A  corresponding  hospital  movement  that  received  consider- 
able attention  within  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  the  erection 
of  Leproseries  or  hospitals  for  the  care  of  lepers.  Leprosy 
had  become  quite  common  in  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  the  contact  of  the  West  with  the  East  during  the  Crusades 
had  brought  about  a  notable  increase  of  the  disease.  It  is  not 
definitely  known  how  much  of  what  was  called  leprosy  at  that 
time  really  belonged  to  the  specific  disease  now  known  as 
lepra.  There  is  no  doubt  that  many  affections  which  have 
since  come  to  be  considered  as  quite  harmless  and  non-contag- 
ious, were  included  under  the  designation  leprosy  by  the  popu- 
lace and  even  by  physicians  incapable  as  yet  of  making  a 
proper  differential  diagnosis.  Probably  severe  cases  of  eczema 
and  other  chronic  skin  diseases,  especially  when  complicated  by 
the  results  of  wrongly  directed  treatment  or  of  lack  of  cleans- 
ing, were  sometimes  pronounced  to  be  leprosy.  Certain  of  the 
severer  forms  of  what  is  now  known  as  psoriasis — a  non-con- 
tagious skin  disease — running  a  very  slow  course  and  some- 
times extremely  obstinate  to  treatment,  were  almost  surely  in- 
cluded under  the  diagnosis  of  leprosy.  Personally  I  have  seen 


CITY  HOSPITALS.  343 

in  the  General  Hospital  in  Vienna,  a  patient  who  had  for  many 
months  been  compelled  by  the  villagers  among  whom  he  lived 
to  confine  himself  to  his  dwelling,  sustained  by  food  that  was 
thrown  into  him  at  the  window  by  the  neighbors  who  were 
fearful  of  the  contagiousness  of  his  skin  disease,  yet  he  was  suf- 
fering from  only  a  very  neglected  case  of  psoriasis. 

There  is  no  doubt,  however,  of  the  existence  of  actual  lep- 
rosy in  many  of  the  towns  of  the  West  from  the  Twelfth  to  the 
Fifteenth  centuries,  and  the  erection  of  these  special  hospitals 
proved  the  best  possible  prophylactic  against  the  further  spread 
of  the  disease.  Leprosy  is  contagious,  but  only  mildly  so.  Years 
of  association  with  lepers  may  and  usually  does  bring  about  the 
communication  of  the  disease  to  those  around  them,  especially 
if  they  do  not  exercise  rather  carefully  certain  precise  precau- 
tions as  to  cleanliness,  after  personal  contact  or  after  the  hand- 
ling of  things  which  have  previously  been  in  the  leper's  posses- 
sion. As  the  result  of  the  existence  of  these  houses  of  segrega- 
tion, leprosy  disappeared  during  the  course  of  the  next  three 
centuries  and  thus  a  great  hygienic  triumph  was  obtained  by 
sanitary  regulation. 

This  successful  hygienic  and  sanitary  work,  which  brought 
about  practically  the  complete  obliteration  of  leprosy  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  furnished  the  first  example  of  the  possibility  of 
eradicating  a  disease  that  had  become  a  scourge  to  mankind. 
That  this  should  have  been  accomplished  by  a  movement  that 
had  its  greatest  source  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  is  all  the  more 
surprising,  since  we  are  usually  accustomed  to  think  of  the  peo- 
ple of  those  times,  as  sadly  lacking  in  any  interest  in  sanitary 
matters.  The  significance  of  the  success  of  the  segregation 
movement  was  lost  upon  men  down  almost  to  our  own  time. 
This  was,  however,  because  it  was  considered  that  most  of  the 
epidemic  diseases  were  conveyed  by  the  air.  They  were  thought 
infectious  and  due  to  a  climatic  condition  rather  than  to  con- 
tagion, that  is  conveyed  by  actual  contact  with  the  person  hav- 
ing the  disease  or  something  that  had  touched  him,  which  is  the 
view  now  held.  With  the  beginning  of  the  crusade  against  tub- 
erculosis in  the  latter  part  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  however, 
the  most  encouraging  factor  for  those  engaged  in  it,  was  the 
history  of  the  success  of  segregation  methods  and  careful  pre- 


344  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

vention  of  the  spread  of  the  disease  which  had  been  pursued 
against  leprosy.  In  a  word  the  lessons  in  sanitation  and  pro- 
phylaxis of  the  Thirteenth  Century  are  only  now  bearing  fruit, 
because  the  intervening  centuries  did  not  have  sufficient  knowl- 
edge to  realize  their  import  and  take  advantage  of  them. 

Pope  Innocent  III.  was  not  the  only  occupant  of  the  papal 
throne  whose  name  deserves  to  be  remembered  with  benedic- 
tions in  connection  with  the  hospital  movement  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century.  His  successors  took  up  the  work  of  encour- 
agement where  he  had  left  it  at  his  death  and  did  much  to  bring 
about  the  successful  accomplishment  of  his  intentions  in  even 
wider  spheres.  Honorius  III.  is  distinguished  by  having  made 
into  an  order  the  Antonine  Congregation  of  Vienna,  which  was 
especially  devoted  to  the  care  of  patients  suffering  from  the  boly 
fire  and  from  various  mutilations.  The  disease  known  as  the 
holy  fire  seems  to  have  been  what  is  called  in  modern  times  ery- 
sipelas. During  the  Middle  Ages  it  received  various  titles  such 
as  St.  Anthony's  fire,  St.  Francis'  fire,  and  the  like,  the  latter 
part  of  the  designation  evidently  being  due  to  the  intense  redness 
which  characterizes  the  disease,  and  which  can  be  compared  to 
nothing  better  than  the  erythema  consequent  upon  a  rather  se- 
vere burn.  This  affection  was  a  great  deal  commoner  in  the 
Middle  Ages  than  in  later  times,  though  it  must  not  be  forgot- 
ten that  its  disappearance  has  come  mainly  in  the  last  twenty- 
five  years. 

It  is  now  known  to  be  a  contagious  disease  and  indeed,  as 
Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  pointed  out  over  half  a  century  ago, 
may  readily  be  carried  from  place  to  place  by  the  physician  in 
attendance.  It  does  not  always  manifest  itself  as  erysipelas 
when  thus  carried,  however,  and  the  merit  of  Dr.  Holmes'  work 
was  in  pointing  out  the  fact  that  physicians  who  attended  pa- 
tients suffering  from  erysipelas  and  then  waited  on  obstetrical 
cases,  were  especially  likely  to  carry  the  infection  which  mani- 
fested itself  as  puerperal  fever.  A  number  of  cases  of  this  kind 
were  reported  and  discussed  by  him,  and  there  is  no  doubt  that 
his  warning  served  to  save  many  precious  lives. 

Of  course  nothing  was  known  of  this  in  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, yet  the  encouragement  given  to  this  religious  order,  which 
devoted  itself  practically  exclusively  to  the  care  in  special  hos- 


CITY  HOSPITALS.  345 

pitals  of  erysipelas,  must  have  had  not  a  little  effect  in  bringing 
about  a  limitation  of  the  spread  of  the  disease.  In  such  hospitals 
patients  were  not  likely  to  come  in  contact  with  many  persons 
and  consequently  the  contagion-radius  of  the  disease  was  limi- 
ted. In  our  own  time  immediate  segregation  of  cases  when  dis- 
covered has  practically  eradicated  it,  so  that  many  a  young  phy- 
sician, even  though  ten  years  in  practise,  has  never  seen  a  case 
of  it.  It  was  so  common  in  America  during  the  Civil  War  and 
for  half  a  century  prior  thereto,  that  there  were  frequent  epi- 
demics of  it  in  hospitals  and  it  was  generally  recognized  that 
the  disease  was  so  contagious  that  when  it  once  gained  a  foot- 
hold in  a  hospital,  nearly  every  patient  suffering  from  an  open 
wound  was  likely  to  be  affected  by  it. 

It  is  interesting  then  to  learn  that  these  people  of  the  Middle 
Ages  attempted  to  control  the  disease  by  erecting  special  hos- 
pitals for  it,  though  unfortunately  we  are  not  in  a  position  to 
know  just  how  much  was  accomplished  by  these  means.  A 
congregation  devoted  to  the  special  care  of  the  disease  had  been 
organized,  as  we  have  said,  early  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  At 
the  end  of  this  century  this  was  given  the  full  weight  of  his 
amplest  approval  by  Pope  Boniface  VIIL,  who  conferred  on  it 
the  privilege  of  having  priests  among  its  members.  It  will  be 
remembered  that  Pope  Boniface  VIII.  is  said  to  have  issued 
the  Bull  which  forbade  the  practise  of  dissection.  The  decre- 
tal in  question,  however,  which  was  not  a  Bull,  only  regulated, 
as  I  have  shown,  the  abuse  which  had  sprung  up  of  dismem- 
bering bodies  and  boiling  them  in  order  to  be  able  to  carry  them 
to  a  distance  for  burial,  and  was  in  itself  an  excellent  hygienic 
measure. 

Many  orders  for  the  care  of  special  needs  of  humanity  were 
established  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  is  from  this 
period  that  most  of  the  religious  habits  worn  by  women  origin- 
ate. These  used  to  be  considered  rather  cumbersome  for  such 
a  serious  work  as  the  nursing  and  care  of  the  sick,  but  in  recent 
years  quite  a  different  view  has  been  taken.  The  covering  of 
the  head,  for  instance,  and  the  shearing  of  the  hair  must  have 
been  of  distinct  value  in  preventing  communication  of  certain 
diseases.  There  has  been  a  curious  assimilation  in  the  last  few 
years,  of  the  dress  required  to  be  worn  by  nurses  in  operating 


346  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

rooms  to  that  worn  by  most  of  the  religious  communities.  The 
head  must  be  completely  covered,  and  the  garments  worn  are 
of  material  that  can  be  washed.  It  will  be  recalled  that  the 
headdresses  of  religious,  being  as  a  rule  of  spotless  white,  must 
be  renewed  frequently  and  therefore  must  be  kept  in  a  condition 
of  what  is  practically  surgical  cleanliness.  While  this  was  not 
at  all  the  intention  of  those  who  adopted  the  particular  style  of 
headdress  worn  by  religious,  yet  their  choice  has  prov2d,  in 
what  may  well  be  considered  a  Providential  way,  to  be  an  ex- 
cellent protective  for  the  patients  against  certain  dangers  that 
would  inevitably  have  been  present,  if  their  dress  had  been  the 
ordinary  one  of  the  women  of  their  class  during  these  many 
centuries  of  hospital  nursing  by  religious  women. 

The  organization  of  charity  is  supposed  to  be  a  feature  of 
social  life  that  was  reserved  for  these  modern  times.  A  sub- 
sequent chapter  on  Democracy,  Christian  Socialism  and  Nat- 
ional Patriotism,  shows  how  false  this  notion  is  from  one 
standpoint ;  a  little  additional  interpretation  will  show  that  the 
generations  which  organized  the  hospitals,  took  care  of  the  lep- 
ers in  such  a  way  as  to  prevent  their  becoming- sources  of  infec- 
tion for  others,  and  segregated  such  severe  contagious  diseases 
as  erysipelas,  not  only  knew  how  to  organize  charitable  efforts, 
but  were  able  to  accomplish  their  purposes  in  this  matter  in  such 
a  way,  that  the  friction  of  the  charity  organization  itself  ab- 
sorbed as  little  as  possible  of  the  beneficent  energy  put  into  it, 
and  nuch  less  than  is  the  case  in  our  own  time.  Besides  the 
monasteries  were  really  active  centers  of  charity  organization 
of  the  most  practical  character.  They  not  only  gave  to  the  peo- 
ple when  their  necessities  required  it,  but  they  were  active  em- 
ployers of  labor  and  in  times  of  scarcity  constantly  made  large 
sacrifices  in  order  to  keep  their  people  employed,  and  even  the 
community  itself  went  on  short  rations  in  order  that  the  suffer- 
ing in  the  neighborhood  might  not  be  extreme.  In  times  of 
prosperity  there  were,  no  doubt,  abuses  in  monasteries,  but  no 
one  ever  accused  them  of  neglecting  the  poor  during  times  of 
famine. 

While  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  so  intent  upon  the  relief 
of  the  social  needs  consequent  upon  illness  and  injury,  it  did 
not  neglect  other  forms  of  social  endeavor.  One  of  the  crying 


CITY  HOSPITALS.  347 

evils  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  the  fact  that  marinei  s  and 
merchants,  as  well  as  pilgrims  to  the  Holy  Land,  were  not  in- 
frequently captured  by  corsairs  from  the  northern  coast  of 
Africa,  and  sold  into  slavery.  At  times,  if  there  was  hope  of  a 
very  large  ransom,  news  of  the  condition  of  these  poor  victims 
might  find  its  way  to  their  homes.  As  a  rule,  however,  they 
were  as  much  lost  to  family  and  friends  as  if  they  had  actually 
been  swallowed  up  by  the  sea,  which  was  usually  concluded  to 
have  been  their  fate.  The  hardships  thus  endured  and  the 
utter  helplessness  of  their  conditions  made  them  fitting  sub^ 
jects  for  special  social  effort.  The  institution  which  was  to 
provide  relief  for  this  sad  state  of  affairs  had  its  rise  in  a  typi- 
cally Thirteenth  Century  way — what,  doubtless,  the  modern 
world  would  be  apt  to  think  of  as  characteristically  medieval — 
but  the  result  achieved  was  as  good  an  example  of  practical 
benevolence  as  has  ever  been  effected  in  the  most  matter-of-fact 
of  centuries. 

Shortly  after  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  two 
very  intelligent  men,  whose  friends  honored  them  very  much 
for  the  saintliness  of  their  lives — meaning  by  saintlinecs  not 
only  their  piety  but  their  thoughtfulness  for  others  before  them- 
selves— had  a  dream  in  which  they  saw  poor  captives  held  in 
slavery  and  asking  for  some  one  out  of  Christian  charity  to 
come  and  ransom  them.  One  of  these  men  was  John  of  Matha, 
a  distinguished  teacher  of  Theology  at  the  University  of  Paris. 
The  other  was  Felix  of  Valois,  more  distinguished  for  his  piety 
than  his  learning,  but  by  no  means  an  ignorant  man.  On  the 
same  night,  though  living  at  a  distance  from  one  another,  they 
had  this  identical  dream.  Having  told  it  next  day  to  some 
friends,  it  happened  that  after  a  time  it  came  to  their  mutual 
knowledge  that  the  other  had  had  a  similar  vision.  The  circum- 
stance seemed  so  striking  to  them  that  they  applied  to  the  Pope 
for  an  interpretation  of  it.  The  Pope,  who  was  Innocent  III., 
the  founder  of  city  hospitals,  saw  in  it  a  magnificent  oppor- 
tunity for  the  foundation  of  another  great  Christian  charity. 

Accordingly  in  interpreting  it,  he  directed  their  thoughts 
toward  the  redemption  of  Christian  captives  taken  by  the 
Saracens.  He  has  as  a  consequence  been  regarded  as  the 
founder  of  the  order  of  Trinitarians  (A.  D.  1198),  and  did,  in 


348  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

fact,  draft  its  Rule.  It  was  called,  from  its  object,  Ordo  de 
Redemptione  Captivorum,  (Order  for  the  Redemption  of  Cap- 
tives)*, but  its  members  were  more  generally  known  as  Trini- 
tarians. They  wore  a  white  habit,  having  a  red  and  blue  cross 
on  the  breast.  They  were  well  received  in  France,  where  they 
had  originated,  were  the  recipients  of  large  sums  of  money  to 
be  devoted  to  the  objects  of  the  order,  and  had  large  acces- 
sions to  their  number,  among  whom  were  many  distinguished 
by  ability  and  profound  learning. 

In  the  year  1200  the  first  company  of  ransomed  captives  ar- 
rived from  Morocco,  and  one  may  easily  imagine  their  joy  on 
again  regaining  their  freedom  and  beholding  once  more  their 
friends  and  native  land. 

The  members  of  this  order  were  sometimes  called  Mathurins, 
from  the  title  of  the  first  church  occupied  by  them  in  Paris. 
They  spread  rapidly  in  Southern  France,  through  Spain,  Italy, 
England,  Saxony,  and  Hungary,  and  foundations  of  a  similar 
kind  were  also  opened  for  women.  Cerfroid,  in  the  diocese 
of  Meaux,  where  the  first  house  of  the  order  was  opened,  be- 
came the  residence  of  the  General  (minister  generalis).  There 
was  a  fine  field  for  their  labors  in  Spain,  where  the  Moors  were 
constantly  at  war  with  the  Christians.  The  self-sacrificing 
spirit  of  these  religious,  which  led  them  to  incur  almost  any 
dangers  in  the  accomplishment  of  their  purpose,  was  only 
equaled  by  their  zeal  in  arousing  interest  for  the  poor  captives. 
They  became  the  accredited  agents  for  the  ransoming  of  pris- 
oners, and  also  for  their  exchange  and  even  the  Mahometans 
learned  to  trust  and  eventually  to  reverence  them.  When  they 
could  not  ransom  at  once  they  thus  succeeded  in  ameliorating 
the  conditions  in  which  slave  prisoners  were  kept,  and  proved 
a  great  source  of  consolation  to  them. 

Another  order,  having  the  same  object  in  view  but  differing 
somewhat  in  its  constitution,  was  founded  in  1218,  by  Peter  of 
Nolasco,  a  distinguished  Frenchman,  and  Raymond  of  Penna- 
fort  the  famous  authority  on  canon  law.  In  this,  too,  medieval 
supernaturalism  evolved  the  usual  practical  results.  In  conse- 
quence of  a  vision,  the  order  was  placed  under  the  special 
protection  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  called  the  Order  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  of  Mercy  (Ordo.  B.  Mariae  de  Mercede).  Its 


CITY  HOSPITALS. 


349 


members  bound  themselves  by  vow  to  give  their  fortunes  and 
to  serve  as  soldiers  in  the  cause.  Their  devotion  was  so  ardent 
that  for  the  accomplishment  of  their  purpose  they  vowed  if 
necessary  to  make  a  sacrifice  of  their  very  persons,  as  Peter 
actually  did  in  Africa,  for  the  redemption  of  Christian  captives. 
Hence  their  members  were  divided  into  Knights  who  wore  a 
white  uniform,  and  Brothers,  who  took  orders  and  provided 
for  the  spiritual  wants  of  the  community.  Gregory  IX.,  admir- 
ing the  heroic  devotion  of  these  intrepid  men,  approved  the 
order.  Many  thousands  of  captive  Christians  who  would 
otherwise  have  dragged  out  a  miserable  existence  as  slaves 
among  the  Mahometans  of  North  Africa,  were  thus  rescued 
and  restored  to  their  families  and  a  life  of  freedom  and  hap- 
piness in  Europe.  This  was  a  fine  practical  example  of  Aboli- 
tionism worthy  of  study  and  admiration. 


THIRTEENTH   CENTURY  HOSPITAL  INTERIOR 

(TONERRE) 


350  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XXII 
GREAT  ORIGINS  IN  LAW. 


Perhaps  the  most  surprising  phase  of  Thirteenth  Century 
history  is  that  much  of  what  is  most  valued  and  most  valuable 
in  our  modern  laws,  especially  as  they  concern  the  fundamental 
rights  of  man,  is  to  be  found  clearly  expressed  in  the  great  law- 
making  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  can  scarcely  fail  to 
astonish  those  who  look  upon  the  Middle  Ages  as  hopelessly 
barren  in  progress,  to  find  that  human  liberty  in  its  develop- 
ment reached  such  a  pass  before  the  end  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
or  that  any  period  so  long  before  the  Renaissance  and  the 
reformation  so-called,  could  be  picked  out  as  representing  a 
distinctive  epoch  in  supremely  liberal  legislation.  After  care- 
ful study,  the  surprise  is  apt  to  be  rather  that  there  should  have 
been  comparatively  so  little  advance  since  that  time,  seeing 
how  much  the  generations  of  this  marvelous  century  were  able 
to  accomplish  in  definitely  formulating  principles  of  human 
rights. 

The  first  great  document  in  the  laws  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury is,  of  course,  Magna  Charta,  signed  in  1215,  the  founda- 
tion of  all  the  liberties  of  English  speaking  people  ever  since. 
Perhaps  the. highest  possible  tribute  to  the  Great  Charter  is  the 
fact  that  it  has  grown  in  the  estimation  of  intelligent  men, 
rather  than  lost  significance.  In  quite  recent  years  it  has  be- 
come somewhat  the  custom  to  belittle  its  import  and  its  influ- 
ence. But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  over  and  over  again  in 
times  of  national  crises  in  England,  Magna  Charta  has  been 
confidently  appealed  to  as  a  fundamental  law  too  sacred  to  be 
altered,  as  a  talisman  containing  some  magic  spell  capable  of 
averting  national  calamity.  Bishop  Stubbs  said  of  it,  that  "the 
Great  Charter  was  the  first  supreme  act  of  the  nation  after  it 
had  realized  its  own  identity." 

Perhaps  in  nothing  does  its  supremacy  as  basic  legislation 
for  national  purposes  so  shine  forth,  as  from  the  fact  that  it  is 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W.  351 

not  a  vague  statement  of  great  principles,  not  a  mere  declara- 
tion of  human  rights,  not  a  documentary  rehearsal  of  funda- 
mental legalities,  but  a  carefully  collected  series  of  practical 
declarations  for  the  solution  of  the  problems  that  were  then 
disturbing  the  peace  of  the  kingdom,  and  leading  to  charge 
and  countercharge  of  infringement  of  right  on  the  part  of  the 
king  and  his  subjects.  As  might  have  been  expected  from  the 
men  of  the  Thirteenth  Century — from  the  generations  who 
more  than  any  other  in  all  human  history  succeeded  in  uniting 
the  useful  with  the  beautiful  in  everything  from  the  decora- 
tion of  their  churches  and  other  great  architectural  structures 
to  the  ordinary  objects  of  everyday  life — it  was  of  eminently 
practical  character.  While  it  is  the  custom  to  talk  much  of 
Magna  Charta  and  to  praise  its  wonderful  influence  there  are 
very  few  people  who  have  ever  actually  read  its  provisions. 
The  classics  are  said  to  be  books  that  everyone  praises  but  no 
one  reads,  and  Magna  Charta  and  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  are  documents  that  are  joined  in  the  same  fate. 
A  little  consideration  of  some  of  the  chapters  of  the  Charter 
will  give  an  excellent  idea  of  its  thoroughly  straightforward 
practicalness,  though  it  may  serve  also  to  undeceive  those 
who  would  expect  to  find  in  this  primal  document  a  lofty  state- 
ment of  abstract  human  rights,  such  as  the  men  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  were  never  conscious  of,  since  their  thoughts 
were  always  in  the  concrete  and  their  efforts  were  bent  to  the 
solution  of  the  problems  lying  just  before  them,  and  not  to  the 
lifting  of  all  the  burdens  that  human  nature  has  to  bear. 

Before  this,  of  course,  there  had  been  some  development  of 
legislation  to  furnish  the  basis  for  what  was  to  come  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  The  famous  Constitutions  of  Clarendon 
under  Henry  II.  and  the  Assizes  of  Clarendon  (quite  a  different 
matter)  and  of  North  Hampton  and.  the  Forest  under  Henry 
II. ,  gave  assurances  of  rights  that  had  only  existed  somewhat 
shadily  before.  According  to  the  Constitutions  of  Clarendon 
sworn  men  gave  their  verdict  in  cases  from  their  own  knowl- 
edge. This  was,  of  course,  quite  a  different  matter  from  the  giv- 
ing of  a  verdict  from  knowledge  obtained  through  witnesses  at 
a  trial,  but  the  germ  of  the  jury  trial  can  be  seen.  It  was  not, 
however,  until  the  next  reign  that  the  men  of  England 


352  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

did  not  merely  wait  for  the  free  gifts  of  legal  rights  but  de- 
manded and  obtained  them.  There  was  a  new  hitherto  un- 
dreamt-of spirit  abroad  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  by  which 
men  dared  to  ask  for  the  rights  they  considered  should  be 
theirs. 

The  opening  chapter  of  Magna  Charta  states  especially  the 
subjects  of  the  rights  that  are  guaranteed  by  the  document.  It 
is  not  surprising  then  to  find  that  the  first  subject  is  the  Church 
and  that  the  most  extensive  guarantees  are  made  that  the  Eng- 
lish Church  liberties  shall  be  inviolate.  Churchmen  had  been 
largely  concerned  in  the  movement  which  secured  the  signing 
of  Magna  Charta,  and  then  after  all,  as  must  never  be  forgot- 
ten, the  Church  at  this  time  was  distinctly  felt  by  all  to  be  the 
spiritual  expression  of  the  religious  aspirations  of  the  people. 
Over  the  concluding  sentence  of  this  chapter,  "the  grant  of 
the  unwritten  liberties  to  all  freemen  of  our  kingdom,"  there 
has  been  no  little  discussion.  There  are  some  who  would  con- 
sider that  it  applied  to  all  Englishmen  above  the  condition  of 
villeins  or  serfs,  while  there  are  others  who  would  limit  its  ap- 
plication practically  to  those  nobly  born  in  the  kingdom.  Pos- 
terity undoubtedly  came  to  translate  it  in  the  broader  sense,  so 
that,  whatever  the  original  intention,  the  phrase  became  as  a 
grant  eventually  to  all  free  Englishmen. 

CHAPTER  I. :  "In  the  first  place  we  have  granted  to  God,  and 
by  this  our  present  charter  confirmed  for  us  and  our  heirs  for 
ever,  that  the  English  Church  bhall  be  free,  and  shall  have  her 
rights  entire,  and  her  liberties  inviolate ;  and  we  will  that  it  be 
thus  observed ;  which  is  apparent  from  this  that  the  freedom  of 
elections,  which  is  reckoned  most  important  and  very  essential 
to  the  English  Church,  we  of  our  pure  and  unconstrained 
will,  did  grant,  and  by  our  charter  confirm  and  did  obtain  the 
ratification  of  the  same  from  our  lord,  Pope  Innocent  III.  before 
the  quarrel  arose  between  us  and  our  barons,  and  this  we  will 
observe,  and  our  will  is  that  it  be  observed  in  good  faith  by  our 
heirs  for  ever.  We  have  also  granted  to  all  freemen  of  our 
kingdom,  for  us  and  for  our  heirs  for  ever,  all  the  underwritten 
liberties,  to  be  had  and  held  by  them  and  their  heirs,  of  us  and 
our  heirs  for  ever." 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  Magna  Charta  is  to 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W.  353 

be  found  in  the  fact,  that  it  did  actually  in  most  cases  come  to 
be  applied  ever  so  much  wider  than  had  apparently  been  the 
original  intention.  It  was  in  this  sense  a  vital  document  as  it 
were,  since  it  had  within  itself  the  power  of  developing  so  as 
to  suit  the  varying  circumstances  for  which  recourse  was  had  to 
it.  There  is  no  doubt  at  all  of  the  good  faith  of  the  men  who 
appealed  to  it,  nor  of  their  firm  persuasion  that  the  document 
actually  intended  what  they  claimed  to  find  in  it.  Modern 
criticism  has  succeeded  in  stripping  from  the  original  expres- 
sions many  of  the  added  meanings  that  posterity  attached  to 
them,  but  in  so  doing  has  really  not  lessened  the  estimation  in 
which  Magna  Charta  must  be  held. 

The  position  is  indeed  noteworthily  analagous  to  that  of  the 
original  deposit  of  faith  and  the  development  of  doctrine  which 
has  taken  place.  Higher  criticism  has  done  much  to  show 
how  little  of  certain  modern  ideas  was  apparently  contained 
explicitly  in  the  original  formulas  of  Christian  faith,  and  yet  by 
so  doing  has  not  lessened  our  beliefs,  but  has  rather  tended  to 
make  us  realize  the  vitality  of  the  original  Christian  tenets. 
As  everything  living  in  God's  creation,  they  have  developed  by 
a  principle  implanted  within  them  to  suit  the  evolutionary  con- 
ditions of  man's  intelligence  and  the  developing  problems  that 
they  were  supposed  to  offer  solutions  for.  The  comparison,  of 
course,  like  all  comparisons,  must  walk  a  little  lame,  since  after 
all  Magna  Charta  is  a  human  document,  and  yet  the  very  fact 
that  it  should  have  presented  itself  under  so  many  varying 
conditions,  ever  with  new  significance  to  succeeding  genera- 
tions of  thinking  men,  is  the  best  evidence  of  how  nearly  man's 
work  at  its  best  may  approach  that  of  the  Creator.  It  is  an 
exemplification,  in  a  word,  of  the  creative  genius  of  the  century, 
a  worthy  compeer  of  the  other  accomplishments  which  have 
proved  so  enduring  and  so  capable  of  making  their  influence 
felt  even  upon  distant  generations. 

It  is  of  the  very  essence  of  the  practicality  of  Magna  Charta 
that  among  the  early  chapters  of  the  important  document- 
Chapter  VII.— is  one  that  concerns  widows  and  their  property 
rights  immediately  after  the  death  of  their  husbands.  Previous 
chapters  had  discussed  questions  of  guardianship  and  inheri- 
tance, since  it  was  especially  minors  who  in  this  rude  period 


354  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

were  likely  to  suffer  from  the  injustice  of  the  crown,  of  their 
over-lords  in  the  nobility,  and  even  from  their  guardians. 
While  Magna  Charta,  then,  begins  with  the  principles  for  the 
regulation  of  matters  of  property  as  regards  children,  it  pro- 
ceeds at  once  to  the  next  class  most  liable  to  injustice  because 
of  their  inability  to  properly  defend  themselves  by  force  of  arms 
• — the  widows. 

CHAPTER  VII. :  "A  widow,  after  the  death  of  her  husband, 
shall  forthwith  and  without  difficulty  have  her  marriage  portion 
and  inheritance ;  nor  shall  she  give  anything  for  her  dower  or 
for  her  marriage  portion,  or  for  the  inheritance  which  she  and 
her  husband  held  on  the  day  of  the  death  of  that  husband ;  and 
she  may  remain  in  the  house  of  her  husband  for  forty  days 
after  his  death,  within  which  time  her  dower  shall  be  assigned 
to  her." 

CHAPTER  VIII. :  "Let  no  widow  be  compelled  to  marry,  so 
long  as  she  prefers  to  live  without  a  husband ;  provided  always 
that  she  gives  security  not  to  marry  without  our  consent,  if  she 
holds  of  us,  or  without  the  consent  of  the  lord  of  whom  she 
holds,  if  she  holds  of  another." 

The  first  of  these  provisions  serves  to  show  very  well  how 
early  in  the  history  of  English  jurisprudence  a  thoroughgoing 
respect  for  woman's  legal  rights  began  to  have  a  place.  The 
beginning  Thirteenth  Century  made  an  excellent  start  in  their 
favor.  For  some  reason  the  movement  for  justice  thus  ini- 
tiated did  not  continue,  but  suffered  a  sad  interruption  down 
almost  to  our  own  times. 

The  second  of  these  provisions  for  widows,  embodied  in 
Chapter  VIII.,  sounds  a  little  queer  to  the  modern  ear.  This 
protection  of  widows  from  compulsion  to  marry  is  apt  to  seem 
absolutely  unnecessary  in  these  modern  days.  Some  of  the 
unmarried  are  indeed  prone  to  think,  perhaps,  that  widows 
have  more  than  their  due  opportunity  in  this  matter  without 
any  necessity  for  protecting  them  from  compulsion.  Of 
course  it  is  to  be  understood  that  it  was  not  always  so  much  the 
charms  of  the  lady  herself  that  must  be  protected  from  com- 
pulsion, as  those  of  the  property  which  she  inherited  and  the 
political  and  martial  influence  that  she  might  be  expected  to 
bring  her  husband.  In  these  troublous  times  when  disputes  with 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W.  355 

appeals  to  arms  were  extremely  frequent,  it  was  important  to 
have  the  regulation,  that  after  the  death  of  a  husband  there 
should  be  no  sudden  unbalancing  of  political  power  because  of 
the  compelled  marriage  of  the  widow  of  some  powerful  noble. 

In  certain  subsequent  chapters  up  to  the  twelfth  there  is 
question  mainly  of  the  rights  of  the  Jews,  as  money-lenders, 
to  collect  their  debts  with  interest  after  the  death  of  the  princi- 
pal to  whom  it  was  loaned.  For  instance,  according  to  Chapter 
X.,  the  debt  shall  not  bear  interest  while  the  heir  is  under  age 
and  if  the  debt  fell  to  the  hands  of  the  crown,  nothing  but  the 
principal  was  to  be  taken.  In  Chapter  XL  if  any  one  died  in- 
debted to  the  Jews  his  wife  should  have  her  dower  and  pay 
nothing  of  that  debt.  For  children  under  age  the  same  princi- 
ple held  and  they  had  a  right  to  the  provision  of  necessaries  in 
keeping  with  the  condition  of  their  father.  This  last  clause 
has  been  perpetuated  in  the  practice  of  our  courts,  as  some 
consider  even  to  the  extent  of  an  abuse,  so  that  debtors  cannot 
collect  from  the  income  of  a  young  man  to  whom  money  has 
been  left,  if  by  so  doing  the  income  should  be  impaired  to  such 
an  extent  as  to  make  his  method  of  living  unsuitable  to  the 
condition  in  life  to  which  he  was  born  and  brought  up. 

Chapter  XII.  has  been  the  subject  of  more  discussion  per- 
haps than  any  other.  McKechnie,  the  most  recent  commentator 
on  Magna  Charta,  says  of  it  :* 

"This  is  a  famous  clause,  greatly  valued  at  the  time  it  was 
framed  because  of  its  precise  terms  and  narrow  scope  (which 
made  evasion  difficult),  and  even  more  highly  valued  in  after 
days  for  exactly  opposite  reasons.  It  came  indeed  to  be  inter- 
preted in  a  broad  general  sense  by  enthusiasts  who,  with  the 
fully-developed  British  constitution  before  them,  read  the 
clause  as  enunciating  the  modern  doctrine  that  the  Crown  can 
impose  no  financial  burden  whatsoever  on  the  people  without 
consent  of  Parliament." 

Readers  may  judge  for  themselves  from  the  tenor  of  the 

*Magna  Carta,  a  Commentary  on  the  Great  Charter  of  King  John, 
with  an  Historical  Introduction  by  William  Sharp  McKechnie,  M.D., 
LL.B.,  D.Phil.  Glasgow,  James  Maclehose  and  Sons,  Publishers  to  the 
University,  1905. 


356  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

chapter,  how  wide  a  latitude  in  interpretation  it  not  only  per- 
mits, but  invites. 

CHAPTER  XII. :  "No  scutage  nor  aid  shall  be  imposed  in  our 
kingdom,  unless  by  common  counsel  of  our  kingdom,  except  for 
ransoming  our  person,  for  making  our  eldest  son  a  knight,  and 
for  once  marrying  our  eldest  daughter;  and  for  these  there 
shall  not  be  levied  more  than  a  reasonable  aid.  In  like  manner 
it  shall  be  done  concerning  aids  from  the  citizens  of  London." 

There  is  no  doubt  that  it  is  hard  to  read  in  this  chapter  all 
that  has  been  found  in  it  by  enthusiastic  appellants  to  Magna 
Charta  at  many  times  during  the  succeeding  centuries.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  however,  within  half  a  century  after  it  had  been 
promulgated,  it  was  appealed  to  confidently  as  one  of  the 
reasons  why  an  English  Parliament  should  meet  if  the  King 
required  special  levies  of  money  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  on 
war.  It  was  during  the  sixth  and  seventh  decades  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  that  the  great  principle  of  English  Legislation : 
"There  shall  be  no  taxation  without  representation" — which 
six  centuries  later  was  to  be  appealed  to  by  the  American 
Colonies  as  the  justification  for  their  war  for  independence, 
gradually  came  to  be  considered  as  a  fundamental  principle  of 
the  relationship  between  the  government  and  the  people.  That 
it  had  its  origin  in  Magna  Charta  there  seems  no  doubt,  and  it 
is  only  another  example  of  that  unconscious  development  of  a 
vital  principle  which,  as  we  know  from  History,  took  place 
so  often  with  regard  to  chapters  of  the  Great  Charter. 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  most  important  chapters  of  Magna 
Charta  is  the  very  brief  one,  No.  17,  which  concerns  itself  with 
the  holding  of  a  Court  of  Common  Pleas.  The  whole  of  the 
chapter  is,  "Common  Pleas  shall  not  follow  our  Court  but 
shall  be  held  in  some  fixed  place."  This  represented  a  distinct 
step  in  advance  in  the  dispensing  of  justice.  It  is  a  little  bit 
hard  for  us  to  understand,  but  all  departments  of  government 
were  originally  centered  in  the  king  and  his  household — the 
court — which  attended  to  royal  and  national  business  of  every 
kind.  As  pointed  out  by  Mr.  McKechnie  in  his  Magna  Charta, 
the  court  united  in  itself  the  functions  of  the  modern  cabinet 
of  the  administrative  department — the  home  office,  the  foreign 
office  and  the  admiralty,  and  of  the  various  legal  tribunals.  It 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W.  357 

was  the  parent  of  the  Court  at  St.  James  and  the  courts  at 
Westminster.  Almost  needless  to  say,  it  is  from  the  fact  that 
the  dispensing  of  justice  was  a  function  of  royalty,  that  the 
places  of  holding  trials  are  still  called  courts. 

According  to  this  chapter  of  Magna  Charta,  thereafter  ordi- 
nary trials,  Common  Pleas,  did  not  have  to  follow  the  Court, 
that  is  the  royal  household,  in  its  wanderings  through  various 
parts  of  the  kingdom,  but  they  were  held  at  an  appointed 
place.  In  the  days  of  Henry  II.  the  entire  machinery  of  royal 
justice  had  to  follow  the  monarch  as  he  passed,  sometimes 
on  the  mere  impulse  of  the  moment,  from  one  of  his  favorite 
hunting-seats  to  another.  Crowds  thronged  after  him  in  hot 
pursuit,  since  it  was  difficult  to  transact  business  of  moment 
before  the  court  without  being  actually  present.  This  entailed 
almost  intolerable  delay,  extreme  annoyance  and  great  expense 
upon  litigants,  who  brought  their  pleas  for  the  king's  decision. 
There  is  an  account  of  the  hardships  which  this  system  inflicted 
upon  suitors  told  of  one  celebrated  case.  Richard  D'Anesty 
gives  a  graphic  record  of  his  journeyings  in  search  of  justice 
throughout  a  period  of  five  years,  during  which  he  visited  in 
the  king's  wake  most  parts  of  England,  Normandy.  Aquitaine, 
and  Anjou.  Ultimately  successful  he  paid  dearly  for  his  legal 
triumph.  He  had  to  borrow  at  a  ruinous  rate  of  interest  in 
order  to  meet  his  enormous  expenses,  mostly  for  traveling, 
and  was  scarcely  able  to  discharge  his  debts. 

All  litigation  then,  that  did  not  directly  involve  the  crown  or 
criminal  procedures,  could  be  tried,  thereafter  by  a  set  of  judges 
who  sat  permanently  in  some  fixed  spot,  which  though  not 
named  was  probably  intended  from  the  beginning  to  be  West- 
minster. Hence  it  has  been  said  by  distinguished  English 
jurists  that  Magna  Charta  gave  England  a  Capital.  On  the 
other  hand  Chapter  XXIV.  insured  justice  in  criminal  cases  by 
reserving  these  pleas  to  judges  appointed  by  the  crown.  This 
short  chapter  reads :  "No  sheriff,  constable,  coroner,  or  others 
of  our  bailiffs  shall  hold  pleas  of  our  Crown."  This  last  ex- 
pression did  not  necessarily  mean  matters  concerned  with  royal 
business  as  might  be  thought,  but  had  in  King  John's  time 
come  to  signify  criminal  trials  of  all  kinds.  It  is  easy  to  under- 
stand that  those  accused  of  crime  would  look  confidently  for 


358  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

justice  to  the  representative  of  the  central  government,  while 
they  dreaded  the  jurisdiction  of  the  less  responsible  officials 
resident  in  the  counties,  who  had  a  wide-spread  reputation  for 
cruelty  and  oppression,  and  for  a  venality  that  it  was  hard  to 
suppress. 

It  would  seem  as  though  these  quotations  would  serve  to 
make  even  the  casual  reader  appreciate  how  thoroughly  Magna 
Charta  deserves  the  reputation  which  it  has  borne  now  for 
nearly  seven  centuries,  of  an  extremely  valuable  fundamental 
document  in  the  history  of  the  liberties  of  the  English  speaking 
people.  Some  of  the  subsequent  chapters  may  be  quoted  without 
comment  because  they  show  with  what  careful  attention  to  de- 
tail the  rights  of  the  people  were  guaranteed  by  the  Chapter,  and 
how  many  apparently  trivial  things  were  considered  worthy  of 
mention.  We  may  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  in  Chapters 
forty-one  and  forty-two  there  are  definite  expressions  of  guar- 
antee for  the  rights  even  of  aliens,  which  represent  a  great  ad- 
vance over  the  feelings  in  this  respect  that  had  animated  the 
people  of  a  century  or  so  before,  and  foreshadow  the  develop- 
ment of  that  international  comity  which  is  only  now  coming  to 
be  the  distinguishing  mark  of  cur  modern  civilization. 

"A  freeman  shall  not  be  amerced  for  a  small  offence,  except 
in  accordance  with  the  degree  of  the  offence ;  and  for  a  grave 
offence  he  shall  be  amerced  in  accordance  with  the  gravity  of 
his  offence,  yet  saving  always  his  'contentment' ;  and  a  mer- 
chant in  the  same  way,  saving  his  wares ;  and  a  villein  shall  be 
amerced  in  the  same  way,  saving  his  wainage — if  they  have 
fallen  into  our  mercy;  and  none  of  the  aforesaid  amercements 
shall  be  imposed  except  by  the  oath  of  honest  men  of  the  neigh- 
borhood. 

"If  any  freeman  shall  die  intestate,  his  chattels  shall  be  dis- 
tributed by  the  hands  of  the  nearest  kinsfolk  and  friends,  under 
the  supervision  of  the  church,  saving  to  everyone  the  debts 
wrhich  the  deceased  owed  to  him. 

"No  constable  or  other  bailiff  of  ours  shall  take  corn  or  other 
provisions  from  anyone  without  immediately  tendering  money 
therefor,  unless  he  can  have  postponement  thereof  by  permis- 
sion of  the  seller. 

"No  sheriff  or  bailiff  of  ours,  or  any  other  person  shall  take 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W.  359 

the  horses  or  carts  of  any  freeman  "for  transport  duty,  against 
the  will  of  the  said  freeman. 

"All  kydells  for  the  future  shall  be  removed  altogether  from 
the  Thames  and  Medway,  and  throughout  all  England,  except 
upon  the  sea  coast. 

"Nothing  in  the  future  shall  be  taken  or  given  for  a  writ  of 
inquisition  of  life  or  limbs,  but  freely  it  shall  be  granted,  and 
never  denied. 

"No  bailiff  for  the  future  shall  put  any  man  to  his  'law'  upon 
his  own  mere  word  of  mouth,  without  credible  witnesses 
brought  for  this  purpose. 

"No  freeman  shall  be  arrested  or  detained  in  prison,  or  de- 
prived of  his  freehold,  or  outlawed,  or  banished,  or  in  any  way 
molested,  and  we  will  not  set  forth  against  him,  nor  send 
against  him,  unless  by  the  lawful  judgment  of  his  peers  and  by 
the  law  of  the  land. 

"To  no  one  will  we  sell,  to  no  one  will  we  refuse  or  delay, 
right  or  justice. 

"All  merchants  shall  have  safe  and  secure  exit  from  England, 
and  entry  to  England,  with  the  right  to  tarry  there  and  to 
move  about  as  well  by  land  as  by  water,  for  buying  and  selling 
by  the  ancient  and  right  customs,  quit  from  all  evil  tolls,  except 
(in  time  of  war)  such  merchants  as  are  of  the  land  at  war  with 
us.  And  if  such  are  found  in  our  land  at  the  beginning  of  the 
war,  they  shall  be  detained  without  injury  to  their  bodies  or 
goods,  until  information  be  received  by  us,  or  by  our  chief  justi- 
ciar,  how  the  merchants  of  our  land  found  in  the  land  at  war 
with  us  are  treated  and  if  our  men  are  safe  there,  the  others 
shall  be  safe  in  our  land. 

"It  shall  be  lawful  in  future  for  any  one  (excepting  always 
those  imprisoned  or  outlawed  in  accordance  with  the  law  of 
the  kingdom,  and  natives  of  any  country  at  war  with  us,  and 
merchants,  who  shall  be  treated  as  is  above  provided)  to  leave 
our  kingdom,  and  to  return,  safe  and  secure  by  land  and 
water,  except  for  a  short  period  in  time  of  war,  on  grounds  of 
public  policy — reserving  always  the  allegiance  due  to  us. 

"We  will  appoint  as  justices,  constables,  sheriffs  or  bailiffs 
only  such  as  know  the  law  of  the  realm  and  mean  to  observe  it 
well. 


360  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

"We  shall  have,  moreover,  the  same  respite  and  the  same 
manner  in  rendering  justice  concerning  the  disafforestation  or 
retention  of  those  forests  which  Henry  our  father  and  Richard 
our  brother  afforested  and  concerning  the  wardship  of  lands 
which  are  of  the  fief  of  another  (namely,  such  wardships  as 
we  have  hitherto  had  by  reason  of  a  fief,  which  any  one  held 
of  us  by  knight's  service)  and  concerning  abbeys  founded  on 
other  fiefs  than  our  own,  in  which  the  lord  of  the  fee  claims 
to  have  fight ;  and  when  we  have  returned,  or  if  we  desist  from 
our  expedition,  we  will  immediately  grant  full  justice  to  all 
who  complain  of  such  things. 

"All  fines  made  with  us  unjustly  and  against  the  law  of  this 
land,  and  all  amercements  imposed  unjusty  and  against  the 
law  of  this  land,  shall  be  entirely  remitted,  or  else  it  shall  be 
done  concerning  them  according  to  the  decision  of  the  five  and 
twenty  barons  of  whom  mention  is  made  below,  in  the  clause 
for  securing  the  peace,  or  according  to  the  judgment  of  the 
majority  of  the  same,  along  with  the  aforesaid  Stephen  Arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  if  he  can  be  present,  and  such  others  as 
he  may  wish  to  bring  with  him  for  this  purpose,  and  if  he  can- 
not be  present  the  business  shall  nevertheless  proceed  without 
him,  provided  always  that  if  any  one  or  more  of  the  aforesaid 
five  and  twenty  barons  are  in  a  similar  suit,  they  shall  be  re- 
moved as  far  as  concerns  this  particular  judgment,  others 
being  substituted  in  their  places  after  having  been  selected  by 
the  rest  of  the  same  five  and  twenty  for  this  purpose  only,  and 
after  having  been  sworn. 

"Moreover,  all  the  aforesaid  customs  and  liberties,  the  ob- 
servance of  which  we  have  granted  in  our  kingdom  as  far  as 
pertains  to  us  towards  our  men,  shall  be  observed  by  all  of  our 
kingdom,  as  well  by  clergy  as  by  laymen,  as  far  as  pertains 
to  them  towards  their  men. 

"And,  on  this  head,  we  have  caused  to  be  made  out  letters 
patent  of  Stephen,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Henry,  Arch- 
bishop of  Dublin,  the  bishops  aforesaid,  and  Master  Pandulf, 
as  evidence  of  this  clause  of  security  and  of  the  aforesaid  con- 
cessions." 

These  last  provisions  show  how  closely  the  Church  was 
bound  up  with  the  securing  and  maintenance  of  the  rights  of 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W.  361 

the  English  people.  The  clauses  we  have  quoted  just  before, 
need  no  comment  to  show  how  sturdily  the  spirit  of  liberty 
strode  abroad  even  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
for  Magna  Charta  was  signed  in  1215.  The  rest  of  the  century 
was  to  see  great  advances  in  liberty  and  human  rights,  even 
beyond  the  guarantees  of  the  Great  Charter. 

Magna  Charta,  glorious  as  it  was,  was  only  the  beginning  of 
that  basic  legislation  which  was  to  distinguish  the  Thirteenth 
Century  in  England.  About  the  middle  of  the  century  Bracton 
began  his  collection  of  the  laws  of  the  land  which  has  since 
been  the  great  English  classic  of  the  Common  Law.  His 
work  was  accomplished  while  he  was  the  Chief  Justiciary  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Henry  III.  For  many  years  before  he  had 
occupied  various  judicial  positions,  as  Justice  Itinerant  of  the 
counties  of  Nottingham  and  Derby  and  for  seventeen  years 
his  name  appears  as  one  of  the  justices  of  the  Aula  Regis.  This 
experience  put  him  in  an  eminently  fitting  position  to  be  the 
mouthpiece  of  English  practice  and  law  applications,  and  his 
book  was  at  once  accepted  as  an  authority.  It  is  a  most  com- 
prehensive and  systematic  work  in  five  volumes,  bearing  the 
title  De  Legibus  et  Consuetudinibus  Angliae,  and  was  mod- 
eled after  the  Institutes  of  Justinian. 

It  was  during  the  reign  of  Edward  L,  the  English  Justinian 
as  he  has  been  called,  that  the  English  Common  Law  came  to 
its  supreme  expression,  and  this  monarch  has  rightly  been 
placed  among  the  great  benefactors  of  mankind  for  his  mag- 
nanimous generosity  in  securing  the  legal  rights  of  his  subjects 
and  framing  English  liberties  for  all  time.  Not  a  little  of 
Edward's  greatness  as  a  law-maker  and  his  readiness  to  recog- 
nize the  rights  of  his  subjects,  with  his  consequent  willingness 
to  have  English  law  arranged  and  published,  must  be  attributed 
to  his  connection  during  his  earlier  years  as  Prince  of  Wales 
with  the  famous  Simon  De  Montfort  To  this  man  more  than 
to  any  other  the  English  speaking  people  owe  the  develop- 
ment of  those  constitutional  rights,  which  gradually  came  to  be 
considered  inalienably  theirs  during  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
He  is  undoubtedly  one  of  the  very  great  characters  of  history 
and  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  by  so  much  greater  for  having 
been  the  scene  of  his  labors,  during  so  many  years,  for  the 


362  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

establishment  of  constitutional  limitations  to  the  power  of  the 
monarch,  and  the  uplifting  of  the  rights  of  subjects  not  only 
among  the  nobility,  but  also  among  the  lower  classes. 

It  was  in  Edward's  time  that  the  English  Common  Lav/  was 
fashioned  into  the  shape  in  which  it  was  to  exist  for  many 
centuries  afterwards.  How  true  this  is  may  perhaps  best  be 
judged  by  the  fact  that  even  the  laws  with  regard  to  real  estate 
have  not  been  changed  in  essence  since  that  time,  though 
medieval  titles  to  land  would  seem  to  be  so  different  to  those 
of  the  present  day.  According  to  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
the  changes  which  have  been  made  since  that  time  have  been 
mainly  due  to  the  action  of  equity  and  legislation,  the  latter 
sometimes  interpreted  by  the  courts  in  a  manner  very  different 
from  the  intention  of  Parliament.  The  same  authority  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  statement  that  the  reign  of  Edward  I.,  is 
notable  for  three  leading  real  estate  statutes  which  are  still  law. 
One  of  these  was  with  regard  to  Mortmain,  while  the  important 
statute  known  as  Quia  Emptores  (the  eighteenth  of  Chapter 
I.  of  the  Laws  of  Edward  I.)  had  the  practical  effect  of  making 
the  transfer  of  land  thenceforward,  more  of  a  commercial  and 
less  of  a  legal  transaction.  It  is  to  this  same  period  that  is 
owed  the  writ  Elegit  which  introduced  the  law  practice  of  a 
creditor's  remedy  over  real  estate.  How  little  was  accom- 
plished in  the  matter  of  law-making  in  subsequent  centuries, 
may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  Mr.  James  Williams  who 
writes  the  article  on  real  estate  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica 
ninth  edition,  says  that  from  1290  to  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII., 
that  is  down  to  the  Sixteenth  Century,  there  is  no  statute  of 
the  first  importance  dealing  with  real  estate. 

In  a  word,  then,  it  may  be  said  that  these  law-makers  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  anticipated  most  of  the  legal  difficulties 
of  the  after-time.  Their  statutory  provisions,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  chapters  of  Magna  Charta,  seemed  originally  only  to  have 
a  narrow  application  to  certain  urgent  legal  questions  of  the 
time,  but  proved  eventually  to  contain  in  themselves  the  essence 
of  legal  principles  that  could  be  applied  in  circumstances  such 
as  the  original  law-maker  had  not  even  imagined.  This  is 
indeed  the  typical  triumph  of  the  century  in  every  line  of  en- 
deavor, that  while  apparently  it  devoted  itself  only  to  the  nar- 


ORIGINS  IN  LA  W. 


363 


row  problems  of  its  own  time,  its  solutions  of  them  whether  in 
art  and  architecture  or  decoration,  in  literary  expression  or 
poetic  effectiveness,  in  educational  methods  or  social  uplift, 
always  proved  so  complete,  so  thoroughly  human  in  the  broad- 
est sense  of  that  word  and  so  consonant  with  development,  that 
their  work  did  not  have  to  be  done  over  again.  No  greater 
praise  than  this  could  be  bestowed. 


SPIRE  OF 

ST.  ELIZABETH'S, 
(MARBURG) 


364  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XXIII 
JUSTICE  AND  LEGAL  DEVELOPMENT. 


It  must  not  be  thought  because  we  have  devoted  so  much 
time  to  the  triumphs  of  English  law-making  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century  that,  therefore,  there  is  little  or  nothing  to  be  said 
about  this  same  admirable  feature  of  the  time  in  other  coun- 
tries. As  a  matter  of  fact  every  nation  in  Europe  saw  the 
foundation  of  its  modern  legal  system  laid,  and  was  responsive 
witness  to  the  expression  of  the  first  principles  of  popular 
rights  and  popular  liberties.  Montalembert  in  his  Life  of  St. 
Elizabeth  of  Hungary*  makes  no  mention  in  the  Introduction 
which  is  really  a  panegyric  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  of  the 
progress  of  English  law-making,  and  yet  considers  that  he  is 
able  to  bring  together  enough  evidence  to  show  that  legislation 
had  its  acme  of  development  just  at  this  time.  His  paragraph 
on  the  subject  will  serve  as  the  best  possible  preface  to  the 
scant  treatment  of  continental  law-making  and  enforcement 
of  justice  in  this  period,  that  our  limited  space  will  allow.  He 
says : 

"Legislation  never,  perhaps,  had  a  more  illustrious  period. 
On  the  one  hand,  the  Popes,  supreme  authorities  in  matters  of 
law  as  well  as  of  faith,  gave  to  canon  law  the  fullest  develop- 
ment possible  to  this  magnificent  security  of  Christian  civiliza- 
tion; sat  themselves  as  judges  with  exemplary  assiduity,  pub- 
lished immense  collections,  and  founded  numerous  schools. 
On  the  other  hand,  that  penod  gave  birth  to  most  of  the 
national  legislation  of  the  various  states  of  Europe;  the  great 
Mirrors  of  Swabia  and  Saxony,  the  first  laws  published  in  the 
German  language  by  Frederick  II.  at  the  diet  of  Mentz,  and 
the  code  given  by  him  to  Sicily;  in  France,  the  Institutes  of 
St.  Louis,  together  with  the  Common  Law  of  Pierre  des  Fon- 

*  Life  of  St.  Elizabeth  of  Hungary  by  ttte-  Cou/it  De  Montalembert, 
translated  by  Francis  Deming  Hoyt,  New  York,  Longman's,  Green 
and  Company,  1904. 


JUSTICE  AND  LEGAL  DEVELOPMENT.      365 

taines,  and  the  Statutes  of  Beauvoisis  of  Philip  of  Beaumanoir ; 
and  lastly  the  French  version  of  the  Assizes  of  Jerusalem,  in 
which  is  to  be  found  the  most  complete  resume  now  extant  of 
Christian  and  chivalric  law.  All  these  precious  monuments  of 
the  old  Christian  organization  of  the  world  are  preserved  in  the 
native  languages  of  the  various  people,  and  are  distinguished 
less  even  by  this  fact  than  by  their  generous  and  pious  spirit, 
from  that  pernicious  Roman  law,  the  progress  of  which  was 
destined  soon  to  change  all  the  principles  of  the  former." 

Most  of  Montalembert's  paragraph  refers  to  the  law-making 
in  France  with  which  he  is  naturally  more  familiar.  He  has 
supplied  ample  material  for  consultation  for  those  who  wish  to 
follow  out  this  interesting  theme  further.  Even  more  signifi- 
cant, however,  than  the  law-making  in  France,  were  the  new 
ideas  with  regard  to  the  enforcement  in  law  that  came  in  dur- 
ing the  reign  of  Louis  IX.  We  have  not  had  to  wait  until  this 
generation  to  realize,  that  as  a  rule  it  is  not  the  absence  of  law 
so  much  as  the  lack  of  enforcement  of  such  laws  as  exist,  that 
gives  rise  to  many  of  the  injustices  between  men.  St.  Louis 
made  it  his  business  to  bring  about  the  enforcement  of  the  laws 
with  proper  construction  of  their  terms  in  such  a  way  as  to  se- 
cure the  rights  of  all.  He  himself  sat  under  the  famous  old 
oak  of  Versailles  as  a  Court  of  Appeals,  reviewing  especially 
the  cases  of  the  poor.  It  soon  came  to  be  known,  that  it  would 
be  a  sad  occasion  for  any  and  every  court  official  who  was 
found  to  have  given  judgment  against  the  poor  because  of 
partiality  or  the  yielding  to  unlawful  influence.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  order  to  keep  the  right  of  appeal  from  being  abused, 
punishments  were  meted  out  to  those  who  made  appeals  with- 
out good  reason. 

Finding  that  he  was  unable  to  hear  so  many  causes  as  were 
appealed  to  him,  Louis  chose  Stephen  Boileau  to  act  as  Chief 
Justice  and  committed  the  care  of  proper  legal  enforcement 
with  confidence  into  his  hands.  Boileau  had  become  famous 
by  having  condemned  some  very  near  relatives,  under  circum- 
stances such  that  relationship  might  have  been  expected  to 
weigh  down  the  wrong  side  of  the  scales  of  justice,  and  in  a 
few  years  he  enhanced  his  reputation  by  the  utter  disregard  of 
all  motives  in  the  settlement  of  suits  at  law,  except  those  of 


366  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  strictest  justice.  How  much  Louis  himself  did  in  order  to 
safeguard  the  rights  of  the  poor  can  be  judged  from  the  fam- 
ous incident  told  by  all  his  biographers,  in  which  he  risked  the 
enmity  of  the  most  powerful  among  his  barons,  in  order  to  se- 
cure the  punishment  of  one  of  them  who  had  put  two  students 
to  death.  This  was  the  first  time  that  the  rights  of  men,  as 
men,  were  asserted  and  it  constitutes  the  best  possible  testimony 
to  the  development  of  law  and  true  liberty  in  France. 

"Three  young  nobles  of  the  county  of  Flanders  were  sur- 
prised, together  with  the  abbot  of  St.  Nicholas,  in  a  wood  per- 
taining to  Coucy,  with  bows  and  arrows.  Although  they  had 
neither  dogs  nor  hunting  implements,  they  were  found  guilty 
of  having  gone  out  to  hunt  and  were  hanged.  The  abbot  and 
several  women  of  their  families  made  complaint  to  the  king, 
and  Enguerrard  was  arrested  and  taken  to  the  Louvre.  The  king 
summoned  him  before  him;  he  appeared,  having  with  him  the 
King  of  Navarre,  the  King  of  Burgundy,  the  counts  of  Bar, 
Soissons,  Brittany,  and  Blois,  the  Archbishop  of  Rheims,  Sire 
John  of  Thorote,  and  nearly  all  the  great  men  in  the  kingdom. 
The  accused  said  that  he  wished  to  take  counsel,  and  he  retired 
with  most  of  the  seigneurs  who  had  accompanied  him,  leaving 
the  king  alone  with  his  household.  When  he  returned,  John  of 
Thorote,  in  his  name,  said  that  he  would  not  submit  to  this  in- 
quiry, since  his  person,  his  honour,  and  his  heritage  were  at 
stake,  but  that  he  was  ready  to  do  battle,  denying  that  he  had 
hanged  the  three  young  men,  or  ordered  them  to  be  hanged. 
His  only  opponents  were  the  abbot  and  the  women,  who  were 
there  to  ask  for  justice.  The  king  answered  that  in  causes 
in  which  the  poor,  the  churches,  and  persons  worthy  of  pity, 
took  part,  it  was  not  fitting  to  decide  them  in  battle;  for  it 
was  not  easy  to  find  anyone  to  fight  for  such  sorts  of  people 
against  the  barons  of  the  kingdom.  He  said  that  his  action 
against  the  accused  was  no  new  thing,  and  he  alleged  the  ex- 
ample of  his  predecessor  Philip  Augustus.  He  therefore 
agreed  to  the  request  of  the  complainants,  and  caused  Enguer- 
rard to  be  arrested  by  the  sergeants  and  taken  to  the  Louvre. 
All  prayers  were  useless ;  St.  Louis  refused  to  hear  them,  rose 
from  his  seat,  and  the  barons  went  away  astonished  and  con- 
fused. 


JUSTICE  AND  LEGAL  DEVELOPMENT.       367 

"They  did  not,  however,  consider  that  they  were  beaten. 
They  again  came  together ;  the  King  of  Navarre,  the  Count  of 
Brittany,  and  with  them  the  Countess  of  Flanders,  who  ought 
rather  to  have  intervened  for  the  victims.  It  was  as  if  they 
had  conspired  against  the  king's  power  and  honour;  for  they 
were  not  content  to  implore  Coucy's  release,  but  asserted  that 
he  could  not  be  kept  in  prison.  The  Count  of  Brittany  main- 
tained that  the  king  had  no  right  to  institute  inquiries  against 
the  barons  of  his  kingdom  in  matters  which  concerned  their 
persons,  their  heritage  or  their  honour.  The  king  replied, 
'You  did  not  speak  thus  in  former  times  when  the  barons  in 
direct  dependence  upon  you  came  before  me  with  complaints 
against  yourself,  and  offered  to  sustain  them  in  battle.  You 
then  said  that  to  do  battle  was  not  in  the  way  of  justice/  The 
barons  put  forward  a  final  argument,  namely,  that  according 
to  the  customs  of  the  kingdom,  the  king  could  only  judge  the 
accused  and  punish  him  in  person  after  an  inquiry  to  which  he 
had  refused  to  submit.  The  king  was  resolute,  and  declared 
that  neither  the  rank  of  the  guilty  man  nor  the  power  of  his 
friends  should  prevent  him  from  doing  full  justice.  Coucy's 
life  was,  however,  spared.  The  fact  that  he  had  not  been 
present  at  the  judgment,  nor  at  the  execution,  prevailed  in  his 
favour.  By  the  advice  of  his  counsellors,  the  king  condemned 
him  to  pay  1200  livres  parisis,  which,  considering  the  difference 
in  the  purchasing  power  of  money,  may  be  estimated  at  con- 
siderably more  than  400,000  pounds,  and  he  sent  this  sum  to 
St.  John  of  Acre  for  the  defense  of  Palestine.  The  wood  in 
which  the  young  men  were  hanged  was  confiscated  to  the  abbey 
of  St.  Nicholas.  The  condemned  man  was  also  constrained  to 
found  three  perpetual  chapelries  for  the  souls  of  his  victims, 
and  he  forfeited  jurisdiction  over  his  woods  and  fish  ponds,  so 
that  he  was  forbidden  to  imprison  or  execute  for  any  offense 
which  had  to  do  with  them.  Since  Enguerrard's  defender, 
John  of  Thorote,  had  in  his  anger  told  the  barons  that  the 
king  would  do  well  to  hang  them  all,  the  king,  who  had  been 
told  of  this,  sent  for  him  and  said,  'How  comes  it,  John,  that 
you  have  said  I  should  hang  my  barons?  I  certainly  will  not 
have  them  hanged,  but  I  will  punish  them  when  they  do  amiss/ 
John  of  Thorote  denied  that  he  had  said  this,  and  offered  to 


368  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

justify  himself  on  the  oath  of  twenty  or  thirty  knights.  The 
king  would  not  carry  the  matter  further,  and  let  him  go." 

One  of  the  best  evidences  of  the  development  of  the  spirit 
of  law  in  Germany  during  this  time  is  the  establishment  of  the 
famous  Fehmic  Courts,  or  Vehmgerichte,  which  achieved  their 
highest  importance  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  As  with 
regard  to  the  universities,  there  is  a  tradition  that  carries  the 
origin  of  these  courts  back  to  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  They 
are  much  more  likely  to  have  been  developments  out  of  the 
relics  of  the  ancient  free  courts  of  the  old  Teutonic  Tribe.  The 
first  definite  knowledge  of  their  existence  cannot  be  traced 
much  earlier  than  a  decade  or  two  before  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury. They  had  their  principal  existence  in  Westphalia.  Prac- 
tically the  whole  country  between  the  Rhine  and  the  Weser 
was  ruled  to  a  subordinate  degree  by  these  Fehmic  courts. 
During  the  Thirteenth  Century  they  were  used  only  in  the  most 
beneficial  and  liberal  spirit,  supplying  a  means  of  redress  at  a 
time  when  the  public  administration  of  justice  was  almost  com- 
pletely in  abeyance.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  before  their  establish- 
ment  disregard  for  authority  to  the  extent  of  utter  lawlessness 
prevailed  in  this  part  of  Germany. 

The  significance  of  these  courts  has  sometimes  been  missed. 
They  arose,  however,  out  of  the  justice  loving  spirit  of  the 
people  themselves  and  were  meant  to  supply  legal  enforcements 
when  the  regularly  constituted  authorities  were  unable  to  se- 
cure them.  They  remind  one  very  much  of  the  vigilance  com- 
mittees, which  in  our  own  country,  in  the  cities  of  the  distant 
West,  bravely  and  with  the  admirable  prudence  of  the  race, 
have  so  often  supplied  the  place  of  regular  courts  and  have 
brought  justice  and  order  out  of  the  chaos  of  lawlessness.  The 
last  place  most  people  would  expect  their  prototypes,  however, 
would  be  here  in  the  Germany  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
How  much  these  Vehmgerichte  accomplished  during  the  Thir- 
teenth and  Fourteenth  centuries  it  would  be  difficult  to  say. 
They  represent  an  outgrowth  of  the  spirit  of  the  people  them- 
selves, that  constitutes  another  striking  feature  of  the  practical 
side  of  the  generations  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  They  rnd 
much  more  to  do  with  bringing  about  the  development  of  the 
modern  acute  sense  of  justice  among  the  Teutonic  peoples 


CITY    GATE    (NEUBRANDENBURG) 


RATHAUS    (STRALSUND) 


JUSTICE  AND  LEGAL  DEVELOPMENT.       369 

than  i?  usually  thought.  They  are  the  German  expression 
of  the  same  feelings  that  in  England  dictated  trial  by  jury,  and 
secured  for  the  English  speaking  people  of  all  time  the  precious 
privileges  of  even-handed  justice  and  the  right  to  be  judged 
by  one's  peers. 

It  was  not  alone  in  the  western  countries  of  Europe  that 
great  advances  were  made  in  liberty.  The  democratic  spirit 
that  was  abroad  made  itself  felt  everywhere  and  the  founda- 
tions of  rights  for  the  people  were  laid  even  in  central  Europe, 
in  countries  which  ordinarily  are  thought  of  at  this  time  as 
scarcely  more  than  emerging  from  barbarism.  Hungary  may 
be  cited  as  an  example.  Andrew  II.  is  usually  set  down  by  nar- 
row-minded historians  as  having  been  entirely  too  visionary 
in  his  character,  and  the  fact  that  he  led  the  fifth  Crusade,  ap- 
parently even  more  fruitless  than  were  most  of  the  others,  is 
supposed  to  be  an  additional  proof  of  this.  Even  Duruy  in  his 
History  of  the  Middle  Ages  says  of  him,  "he  organized  a  state 
of  anarchy  by  decreeing  his  Golden  Bull,  that  if  the  King 
should  violate  the  privileges  of  the  nobility,  they  should  be  per- 
mitted to  resist  him  by  force  and  such  resistance  should  not 
be  treated  as  rebellion."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  his  people  were 
thus  granted  a  constitution  more  liberal  even  than  that  of 
Magna  Charta,  but  containing  quite  similar  provisions  in  many 
respects,  and  the  curious  historical  analogy  is  heightened  when 
we  recall  that  at  the  two  ends  of  civilized  Europe  these  con- 
stitutions were  given  in  the  same  decade.  One  cannot  help  but 
wonder  whether  the  Saxon  elements  which  were  in  both  peoples, 
for  many  Saxon  and  Frisian  colonists  had  been  induced  to 
settle  in  certain  parts  of  Transylvania  just  half  a  century  be- 
fore, did  not  have  much  to  do  with  this  extremely  interesting 
development  in  Hungary,  so  like  the  corresponding  evolution 
of  the  democratic  spirit  among  their  western  kinsfolk. 

In  Poland  the  development  in  law  came  a  little  later  but 
evidently  as  the  result  of  the  same  factors  that  were  at  work 
during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Casimir  the  Great,  who  was 
born  shortly  after  the  close  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  gave 
wise  laws  to  Poland  which  have  constituted  the  basis  of  Polish 
law  ever  since.  At  this  time  Poland  was  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant countries  in  Europe.  Casimir,  besides  giving  laws  to 


370  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

his  people,  also  founded  a  university  for  them  and  in  every  way 
encouraged  the  development  of  such  progress  as  would  make 
his  subjects  intelligently  realize  their  own  rights  and  maintain 
them,  apparently  foreseeing  that  thus  the  King  would  be  bet- 
ter able  to  strengthen  himself  against  the  many  enemies  that 
surrounded  him  in  central  Europe. 

How  much  the  great  Popes  of  the  century  accomplished  for 
the  foundation  and  development  of  law,  can  only  be  appreciated 
by  those  who  realize  the  extent  of  their  contributions  to  the 
codification  of  canon  law.  It  was  the  arrangement  of  this  in 
definite  shape  that  put  the  civil  jurists  of  the  time  at  work  set- 
ting their  house  in  order.  Innocent  III.,  who  is  deservedly 
called  Pater  Juris,  devoted  a  great  deal  of  his  wonderful  en- 
ergy and  genius  to  the  arrangement  of  canon  law.  This 
placed  for  the  first  time  the  canon  law  on  an  absolutely  sure 
footing  and  filled  up  many  gaps  that  formerly  existed.  Greg- 
ory IX.  commissioned  his  chaplain,  the  famous  Raymond  of 
Pennaforte,  who  had  been  a  professor  of  canon  law  in  the 
University  of  Bologna,  to  codify  all  the  decretals  since  the 
time  of  Gratian.  This  work  was  officially  promulgated  in  1234. 
four  years  of  labor  having  been  devoted  to  it.  The  laws  are 
in  the  form  of  decisions  pronounced  in  cases  submitted  to  the 
Pope  from  all  parts  of  Christendom,  including  many  from  the 
distant  East  and  not  a  few  from  England  and  Scotland.  Greg- 
ory's decretals  were  published  in  five  books ;  a  supplement  un- 
der the  name  of  the  sixth  book  was  published  under  Pope 
Boniface  VIII.  in  1298.  In  this  for  the  first  time  abstract 
rules  of  law  are  laid  down  extracted  from  actual  judgments. 
A  compendium  of  Roman  Law  was  added  so  as  to  approxi- 
mate canon  and  civil  procedure. 

This  gives  the  best  possible  idea  of  how  deeply  the  popes  and 
the  authorities  in  canon  law  of  the  century  were  laying  the 
foundations  of  canonical  practise  and  procedure  for  all  times. 
The  origins  of  modern  law  are  to  be  found  here,  and  yet  not, 
as  might  be  anticipated  because  of  the  distance  in  time,  in  such 
a  confused  or  unmanageable  fashion  that  they  are  not  worth 
while  consulting,  but  on  the  contrary  with  such  clarity  and  dis- 
tinctness and  with  such  orderly  arrangement,  that  they  have 
been  the  subjects  of  study  on  the  part  of  distinguished  jur- 


JUSTICE  AND  LEGAL  DEVELOPMENT.       371 

ists  for  most  of  the  centuries  ever  since,  and  have  never  lost 
their  interest  for  the  great  lawyers  and  canonists,  who  pre- 
fer to  know  things  from  the  foundation  rather  than  accept 
them  at  second  hand. 

Some  of  the  commentaries,  or  glosses  as  they  were  called, 
on  canon  law  serve  to  give  an  excellent  idea  of  the  legal  ability 
as  well  as  the  intellectual  acumen  of  the  canon  lawyers  of  the 
century.  The  system  of  teaching  was  oral,  and  careful  study 
was  devoted  to  original  authorities  in  law.  Explanatory  notes 
were  added  by  the  professors  to  their  copies  of  the  text.  When 
later  these  texts  were  given  out  or  lent  for  transcription,  the 
notes  were  also  copied,  usually  being  written  in  the  margin. 
After  a  time  the  commentary,  however,  proved  to  be,  for  stu- 
dents at  least,  as  important  as  the  text  and  so  was  transcribed 
by  itself  and  was  called  an  apparatus,  that  is  a  series  of  me- 
chanical helps,  as  it  were,  to  the  understanding  of  the  text. 

Of  the  names  of  some  of  the  most  distinguished  glossatores 
the  memory  has  been  carefully  preserved  because  they  pro- 
duced so  much  effect  on  legal  teaching.  The  gloss  writ- 
ten on  Gratian  by  Joannes  Teutonicus  (John  the  German), 
probably  during  the  first  decade  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
was  revised  and  supplemented  by  Bartholomew  of  Brescia 
about  the  middle  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Some  ten  years 
later  Bernard  of  Parma  wrote  a  commentary  on  the  decretals 
of  Gregory.  All  of  these  are  important  fundamental  works 
in  canon  law,  and  they  were  of  very  great  influence  in  bring- 
ing out  the  principles  of  law  and  showing  the  basis  on  which 
they  were  founded.  It  is  almost  needless  to  say  that  they 
aroused  additional  interest  and  made  the  subject  much  more 
easy  of  approach  than  it  had  been.  The  fact  that  all  of  these 
magnificent  contributions  to  the  science  and  literatures  of  law 
should  have  been  made  during  our  Thirteenth  Century,  serves 
only  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  everything  that  men  touched 
during  this  period  was  sure  to  be  illuminated  by  the  practical 
genius  of  the  time,  and  put  into  a  form  in  which  for  many  cen- 
turies it  was  to  be  appealed  to  as  a  model  and  an  authority  in 
its  own  line.  How  much  of  legal  commentary  writing  there 
was  besides  these,  can  be  readily  understood  from  the  fact  that 
these  represent  the  activity  only  of  the  University  of  Bologna 


372  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

which  was,  it  is  true,  the  greatest  of  universities  in  its  law 
department,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  many  other  uni- 
versities throughout  Europe  also  had  distinguished  profes- 
sors of  law  at  this  time. 

All  this  would  seem  to  be  of  little  interest  for  the  seculai 
law-making  of  the  period,  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that, 
civil  law  was  closely  related  to  canon  law  at  all  times  and  that, 
the  development  of  canon  law  always  meant  a  renewed  evolu- 
tion of  the  principles,  and  practise,  and  procedure  of  the 
civil  law.  In  such  countries  as  Scotland,  indeed,  the  canon 
law  formed  the  basis  of  the  civil  jurisprudence  and  its 
influence  was  felt  even  for  centuries  after  the  so-called  refor- 
mation. On  the  other  hand  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the 
popes  and  the  ecclesiastics  helped  to  fight  the  battles  of  the 
middle  and  lower  classes  against  the  king  and  the  nobility  in 
practically  every  country  in  Europe.  A  very  striking  example 
of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  life  of  that  much  misunderstood 
Pope  Boniface  VIIL,  the  last  pope  of  the  century,  who  had  re- 
ceived his  legal  training  at  Bologna,  and  who  was  one  of  the 
great  jurists  of  his  time.  Circumstances  differ  so  much,  how- 
ever, and  obscure  realities  to  such  a  degree,  that  at  the  present 
time  we  need  the  light  of  sympathetic  interpretation  to  enable 
us  to  realize  what  Boniface  accomplished. 

He  did  much  to  complete  in  his  time  that  arrangement  and 
codification  of  canon  law  which  his  predecessors  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century  had  so  efficiently  commenced.  Like  Inno- 
cent III.  he  has  been  much  maligned  because  of  his  supposed 
attempt  to  make  the  governments  of  the  time  subservient  to 
the  Pope  and  to  make  the  Church  in  each  nation  independent 
of  the  political  government.  With  regard  to  the  famous  Bull 
Clericis  Laicos,  "thrice  unhappy  in  name  and  fortune"  as  it 
has  been  designated,  much  more  can  be  said  in  justification 
than  is  usually  considered  to  be  the  case.  Indeed  the  Rev.  Dr. 
Barry,  whose  "Story  of  the  Papal  Monarchy"  in  the  Stories 
of  the  Nations  series  has  furnished  the  latest  discussion  of 
this  subject,  does  not  hesitate  to  declare  that  the  Bull  far  from 
being  subversive  of  political  liberties  or  expressive  of  too  arro- 
gant a  spirit  on  the  part  of  the  Church,  was  really  an  expres- 
sion of  a  great  principle  that  was  to  become  very  prominent  in 


BONIFACE  VIII  (GIOTTO) 


JUSTICE  AND  LEGAL  DEVELOPMENT.       373 

modern  history,  and  the  basis  of  many  of  the  modern  declara- 
tions of  rights  against  the  claims  of  tyranny. 

He  says  in  part: 

"Imprudent,  headlong,  but  in  its  main  contention  founded 
on  history,  this  extraordinary  state-paper  declared  that  the  la- 
ity had  always  been  hostile  to  the  clergy,  and  were  so  now  as 
much  as  ever.  But  they  possessed  no  jurisdiction  over  the 
persons,  no  claims  on  the  property  of  the  church,  though  they 
had  dared  to  exact  a  tenth,  nay,  even  a  half,  of  its  income  for 
secular  objects,  and  time-serving  prelates  had  not  resisted. 
Now,  on  no  title  whatsoever  from  henceforth  should  such  taxes 
be  levied  without  permission  of  the  Holy  See.  Every  layman, 
though  king  or  emperor,  receiving  these  moneys  fell  by  that 
very  act  under  anathema;  every  churchman  paying  them  was 
deposed  from  his  office;  universities  guilty  of  the  like  offense 
were  struck  with  interdict. 

"Robert  of  Winchelsea,  Langton's  successor  as  primate, 
shared  Langton's  views.  He  was  at  this  moment  in  Rome, 
and  had  doubtless  urged  Boniface  to  come  to  the  rescue  of  a 
frightened,  down-trodden  clergy,  whom  Edward  I.  would 
not  otherwise  regard.  In  the  Parliament  at  Bury,  this  very 
year,  the  clerics  refused  to  make  a  grant.  Edward  sealed  up 
their  barns.  The  archbishop  ordered  that  in  every  cathedral 
the  pope's  interdiction  should  be  read.  Hereupon  the  chief- 
justice  declared  the  whole  clergy  outlawed;  they  might  be 
robbed  or  murdered  without  redress.  Naturally,  not  a  few 
gave  way;  a  fifth,  and  then  a  fourth,  of  their  revenue  was 
yielded  up.  But  Archbishop  Robert  alone,  with  all  the  pre- 
lates except  Lincoln  against  him,  and  the  Dominicans  preach- 
ing at  Paul's  cross  on  behalf  of  the  king,  stood  out,  lost  his 
lands,  and  was  banished  to  a  country  parsonage.  War  broke  out 
in  Flanders.  It  was  the  saving  of  the  archbishop.  At  West- 
minster Edward  relented  and  apologized.  He  confirmed  the 
two  great  charters;  he  did  away  with  illegal  judgments  that 
infringed  them.  Next  year  the  primate  excommunicated  those 
royal  officers  who  had  seized  goods  or  persons  belonging  to 
the  clergy,  and  all  who  had  violated  Magna  Charta.  The 
Church  came  out  of  this  conflict  exempt,  or,  more  truly  a  self- 
governing  estate  of  the  realm.  It  must  be  considered  as  hav- 


374  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ing  greatly  concurred  towards  the  establishment  of  that  funda- 
mental law  invoked  long  after  by  the  thirteen  American  Colo- 
nies, 'No  taxation  without  representation/  which  is  the  cor- 
ner stone  of  British  freedom." 

We  have  so  often  heard  it  said  that  there  is  nothing  new  un- 
der the  sun,  that  finally  the  expression  has  come  to  mean  very 
little,  though  its  startling  truth  sometimes  throws  vivid  light  on 
historical  events.  Certainly  the  last  place  in  the  world  that 
one  would  expect  to  find  if  not  the  origin,  for  all  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century  this  great  principle  had  been  gradually 
asserting  itself,  at  least,  a  wondrous  confirmation  of  the  prin- 
ciple on  which  our  American  revolution  justified  itself,  would 
be  in  a  papal  document  of  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century. 
Here,  however,  is  a  distinguished  scholar,  who  insists  that  the 
Colonists'  contention  that  there  must  be  no  taxes  levied  unless 
they  were  allowed  representation  in  some  way  in  the  body 
which  determined  the  mode  and  the  amount  of  taxation,  re- 
ceived its  first  formal  justification  in  history  at  the  hands  of  a 
Roman  Pontiff,  nearly  five  centuries  before  the  beginning  of 
the  quarrel  between  the  Colonies  and  the  Mother  Country. 
The  passage  serves  to  suggest  how  much  of  what  is  modern 
had  its  definite  though  unsuspected  origin,  in  this  earlier  time. 


DECORATION 
THIRTEENTH 
CENTURY  MS. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    375 

XXIV 

DEMOCRACY,  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM  AND 
NATIONALITY. 


Democracy  is  a  word  to  conjure  with  but  it  is  usually  con- 
sidered that  the  thing  it  represents  had  its  origin  in  the  modern 
world  much  later  than  the  period  with  which  we  are  occupied. 
The  idea  that  the  people  should  be  ready  to  realize  their  own 
rights,  to  claim  their  privileges  and  to  ask  that  they  should  be 
allowed  to  rule  themselves,  is  supposed  ordinarily  to  be  a 
product  of  the  last  century  or  two.  Perhaps  in  this  matter 
more  than  any  other  does  the  Thirteenth  Century  need  in- 
terpretation to  the  modern  mind,  yet  we  think  that  after  certain 
democratic  factors  and  developments  in  the  life  of  this  period 
are  pointed  out  and  their  significance  made  clear,  it  will  become 
evident  that  the  foundations  of  our  modern  democracy  were 
deeply  laid  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  that  the  spirit  of 
what  was  best  in  the  aspiration  of  people  to  be  ruled  by  them- 
selves, for  themselves,  and  of  themselves  had  its  birth  in  this 
precious  seed  time  of  so  much  that  is  important  for  our  modern 
life. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  this  idea  of  the  development 
of  democracy  has  been  engendered  merely  in  the  enthusiastic 
ardor  of  special  admiration  for  the  author's  favorite  century,  it 
seems  well  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  historians  in  recent 
years  have  very  generally  emphasized  the  role  that  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  played  in  the  development  of  freedom.  A  typi- 
cal example  may  be  quoted  from  the  History  of  Anglo-Saxon 
Freedom  by  Professor  James  K.  Hosmer,*  who  does  not  hesi- 
tate to  say  that  "while  in  England  representative  govern- 
ment was  gradually  developing  during  this  century,  in 
Germany  the  cities  were  beginning  to  send  deputies  to 
the  Imperial  Parliament  and  the  Emperor,  Frederick  II., 
was  allowing  a  certain  amount  of  representation  in  the 

*Scribners,  New  York,  1890. 


376  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Government  of  Sicily.  In  Spain,  Alfonso  the  Wise,  of  Castile, 
permitted  the  cities  to  send  representatives  to  the  Cortez, 
and  in  France  this  same  spirit  developed  to  such  a  degree  that 
a  representative  parliament  met  at  the  beginning  of  the  Four- 
teenth Century."  In  none  of  these  countries,  however,  un* 
fortunately  did  the  spirit  of  representative  government  con- 
tinue to  develop  as  in  England  and  in  many  of  them  the  priv~ 
ileges  obtained  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  were  subsequently 
lost. 

Certain  phases  of  the  rise  of  the  democratic  spirit  have  aK 
ready  been  discussed,  and  the  reader  can  only  be  referred  to 
them  now  with  the  definite  idea  of  recognizing  in  them  the 
democratic  tendencies  of  the  time.  What  we  have  said  about 
the  trade  guilds  constitutes  one  extremely  important  element 
of  the  movement  which  will  be  further  discussed  in  this  chap- 
ter. After  this  comes  the  guild  merchant  in  its  various  forms. 
After  all  the  Hanseatic  League  was  only  one  manifestation  of 
these  guilds.  Its  widespread  influence  in  awakening  in  people's 
minds  the  realization  that  they  could  do  for  themselves  much 
more,  and  secure  success  in  their  endeavors  much  better  by  their 
own  united  efforts,  than  by  anything  that  their  accepted  polit- 
ical rulers  could  do  or  at  least  would  do  for  them,  will  be 
readily  appreciated  by  all  who  read  that  chapter. 

Hansa  must  have  been  a  great  enlightener  for  the  Teutonic 
peoples.  The  History  of  the  league  shows  over  and  over  again 
their  political  rulers  rather  interfering  with  than  fostering  their 
commercial  prosperity.  These  rulers  were  always  more  than  a 
little  jealous  of  the  wealth  which  the  citizens  of  these  growing 
towns  in  their  realm  were  able  to  accumulate,  and  they  showed 
it  on  more  than  one  occasion.  The  history  of  the  Hansa  towns 
exhibits  the  citizens  doing  everything  to  dissemble  the  feelings 
of  disaffection  that  inevitably  came  to  them  as  the  result  of 
their  appreciation  of  the  fact,  that  they  could  rule  themselves 
so  much  better  than  they  were  being  ruled,  and  that  they  could 
accomplish  so  much  more  for  themselves  by  their  commercial 
combination  with  other  cities  than  had  ever  been  done  for  them 
by  these  hereditary  princes,  who  claimed  so  much  yet  gave  so 
little  in  their  turn. 

The  training  in  self-government  that  came  with  the  neces- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    377 

sities  for  defense  as  well  as  for  the  protection  of  commercial 
visitors  from  other  cities  in  the  league,  who  trustfully  came 
to  deal  with  their  people,  was  an  education  in  democracy  such 
as  could  not  fail  to  bring  results.  The  rise  of  the  free  cities 
in  Germany  represents  the  growth  of  the  democratic  spirit 
down  to  our  own  time,  better  than  any  other  single  set  of  mani- 
festations that  we  have.  The  international  relations  of  these 
cities  did  more,  as  we  have  said,  to  broaden  men's  minds  and 
make  them  realize  the  brotherhood  of  man  in  spite  of  national 
boundaries  than  any  other  factor  in  human  history.  Commerce 
has  always  been  a  great  leveler  and  such  it  proved  to  be  in 
these  early  days  in  Germany,  only  it  must  not  be  thought  that 
these  German  cities  had  but  faint  glimmerings  of  the  great  pur- 
pose they  were  engaged  in,  for  seldom  has  the  spirit  of  popular 
government  risen  higher  than  with  them. 

How  clearly  the  Teutonic  mind  had  grasped  the  idea  of 
democracy  can  be  best  appreciated  perhaps  from  the  attitude 
of  the  Swiss  in  this  matter.  These  hardy  mountaineers  whose 
difficult  country  and  rather  severe  climate  separate  them  effect- 
ually from  the  other  nations,  soon  learned  the  advisability  of 
ruling  themselves  for  their  own  benefit.  Before  the  end  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  they  had  formed  a  defensive  and  of- 
fensive union  among  themselves  against  the  Hapsburgs,  and 
though  for  a  time  overborne  by  the  influence  of  this  house 
after  its  head  ascended  the  Imperial  throne,  immediately  on 
Rudolph's  death  they  proceeded  to  unite  themselves  still  more 
firmly  together.  They  then  formed  the  famous  league  of  1291 
which  represents  so  important  a  step  in  the  democracy  of  mod- 
ern times.  The  formal  document  which  constituted  this  league 
a  federal  government  deserves  to  be  quoted.  It  is  the  first 
great  declaration  of  independence,  and  its  ideas  were  to  crop 
out  in  many  another  declaration  in  the  after  times.  It  is  an 
original  document  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  word.  It  runs 
as  follows : 

"Know  all  men  that  we,  the  people  of  the  valley  of  Uri,  the 
community  of  the  valley  of  Schwiz,  and  the  mountaineers  of 
the  lower  valley,  seeing  the  malice  of  the  times,  have  solemnly 
agreed  and  bound  ourselves  by  oath  to  aid  and  defend  each 
other  with  all  our  might  and  main,  with  our  lives  and  property, 


3  78  GREA  TEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

both  within  and  without  our  boundaries  each  at  his  own  ex- 
pense, against  every  enemy  whatever  who  shall  attempt  to  mo- 
lest us,  either  singly  or  collectively.  This  is  our  ancient  cove- 
nant. Whoever  hath  a  lord  let  him  obey  him  according  to  his 
bounden  duty.  We  have  decreed  that  we  shall  accept  no  magis- 
trate in  our  valleys  who  shall  have  obtained  his  office  for  a  price, 
or  who  is  not  a  native  or  resident  among  us.  Every  difference 
among  us  shall  be  decided  by  our  wisest  men;  and  whoever 
shall  reject  their  award  shall  be  compelled  by  the  other  con- 
federates. Whoever  shall  wilfully  commit  a  murder  shall  suf- 
fer death,  and  he  who  shall  attempt  to  screen  the  murderer  from 
justice  shall  be  banished  from  our  valleys.  An  incendiary  shall 
lose  his  privileges  as  a  free  member  of  the  community,  and 
whoever  harbors  him  shall  make  good  the  damage.  Whoever 
robs  or  molests  another  shall  make  full  restitution  out  of  the 
property  he  possesses  among  us.  Everyone  shall  acknowledge 
the  authority  of  a  chief  magistrate  in  either  of  the  valleys.  If 
internal  quarrels  arise,  and  one  of  the  parties  shall  refuse  fair 
satisfaction,  the  confederates  shall  support  the  other  party. 
This  covenant  for  our  common  weal,  shall,  God  willing,  endure 
forever." 

In  England  democracy  was  fostered  in  the  guilds,  which, 
as  we  have  already  seen  in  connection  with  the  cathedrals, 
proved  the  sources  of  education  and  intellectual  development 
in  nearly  every  mode  of  thought  and  art.  The  most  interesting 
feature  of  these  guilds  was  the  fact  that  they  were  not  insti- 
tutions suggested  to  the  workmen  and  tradesmen  by  those  above 
them,  but  were  the  outgrowth  of  the  spirit  of  self  help  and 
organization  which  came  over  mankind  during  this  century. 
At  the  beginning  they  were  scarcely  more  than  simple  bene- 
ficial associations  meant  to  be  aids  in  times  of  sickness  and  trial, 
and  to  make  the  parting  of  families  and  especially  the  death  of 
the  head  of  the  family  not  quite  so  difficult  for  the  survivors, 
since  affiliated  brother  workmen  remained  behind  who  would 
care  for  them.  During  this  century,  however,  the  spirit  of  de- 
mocracy, that  is  the  organized  effort  of  the  people  to  take  care 
of  themselves,  better  their  conditions,  and  add  to  their  own  hap- 
piness, led  to  the  development  of  the  guilds  in  a  fashion  that  it 
is  rather  difficult  for  generations  of  the  modern  time  to  under- 


DEMOCRA CY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    3 79 

stand,  for  our  trades'  unions  do  not,  as  yet  at  least,  present 
anything  that  quite  resembles  their  work  in  our  times. 

It  was  because  of  the  effective  social  work  of  these  guilds 
that  Urbain  Gohier,  the  well-known  French  socialist  and 
writer  on  sociological  subjects,  was  able  to  say  not  long  ago  in 
the  North  American  Review : 

"When  the  workmen  of  the  European  Continent  demand 
'the  three  eights' — eight  hours  of  work,  eight  hours  of  rest  and 
refreshment,  physical  and  mental,  and  eight  hours  of  sleep — 
some  of  them  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  this  reform  already 
exists  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  countries;  but  all  are  ignorant  of 
this  other  fact  that,  during  the  Middle  Ages,  in  an  immense 
number  of  labor  corporations  and  cities,  a  work-day  was  often 
only  nine,  eight  and  even  seven  hours  long.  Nor  have  they  ever 
been  told  that  every  Saturday,  and  on  the  eve  of  over  two  dozen 
holidays,  work  was  stopped  everywhere  at  four  o'clock."  The 
Saturday  half  holiday  began  it  may  be  said  even  earlier,  namely 
at  the  Vesper  Hour  which  according  to  medieval  church  cus- 
toms was  some  time  between  two  and  three  p.  m.  and  the  same 
was  true  on  the  vigils,  as  the  eves  of  the  important  church 
festivals  were  called. 

The  only  possible  way  to  give  a  reasonably  good  idea  of  the 
spirit  of  the  old-time  guilds  which  succeeded  in  accomplishing 
such  a  wonderful  social  revolution,  is  to  quote  some  of  their 
rules,  which  serve  to  show  their  intents  and  purposes  at  least, 
even  though  they  may  not  always  have  fulfilled  their  aims. 
Their  rules  regard  two  things  particularly — the  religious  and 
the  social  functions  of  the  guild.  There  was  a  fine  for  ab- 
sence from  the  special  religious  services  held  for  the  members 
but  also  a  fine  of  equal  amount  for  absence  from  the  annual 
banquet.  In  this  they  resemble  the  rules  of  the  religious  orders 
which  were  coming  to  be  widely  known  at  the  end  of  the 
Twelfth  and  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  ac- 
cording to  which  the  members  of  the  religious  community  were 
required  quite  as  strictly  to  be  present  at  daily  recreation,  that 
is,  at  the  hour  of  conversation  after  meals,  as  at  daily  prayer. 
An  interesting  phase  of  the  social  rules  of  the  guild  is  that  a 
member  was  expected  to  bring  his  wife  with  him,  or  if  not  his 
wife  then  his  sweetheart.  They  were  franker  in  these  matters 


380  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

in  this  simpler  age  and  doubtless  the  custom  encouraged  matri- 
mony a  little  bit  more  than  our  modern  colder  customs. 

As  giving  a  fair  idea  of  the  ordinances  of  the  pre-Reforma- 
tion  guilds  in  their  original  shape  the  rules  of  the  Guild  of  St. 
Luke  at  Lincoln,  may  be  cited.  St.  Luke  had  been  chosen  as 
patron  because  according  to  tradition  he  was  an  artist  as  well 
as  an  evangelist.  The  patron  saint  was  chosen  always  so  that 
he  might  be  a  model  of  life  as  well  as  a  protector  in  Heaven. 
Its  members  were  the  painters,  guilders,  stainers.  and  alabaster 
men  of  the  city.  The  first  rule  provides  that  on  the  Sunday 
next  after  the  feast  of  St.  Luke  all  the  brothers  and  sisters  of 
the  Guild  shall,  with  their  officers,  go  in  procession  from  an 
appointed  place,  carrying  a  great  candle,  to  the  Cathedral 
Church  of  Lincoln,  and  there  every  two  of  the  brethren  and 
sisters  shall  offer  one  half-penny  or  more  after  their  devotion, 
and  then  shall  offer  the  great  candle  before  an  image  of  St. 
Luke  within  the  church.  And  any  who  were  absent  without 
lawful  cause  shall  forfeit  one  pound  of  wax  to  the  sustenta- 
tion  of  the  said  great  candle. 

On  the  same  Sunday,  "for  love  and  amity  and  good  commu- 
nication to  be  had  for  the  several  weal  of  the  fraternity,"  the 
guildmen  dined  together,  every  brother  paying  for  himself 
and  his  wife,  or  sweetheart,  the  sum  of  four  pence.  Absentees 
were  fined  one  pound  of  wax  towards  the  aforesaid  candle. 

The  third  rule  provided  that  four  "mornspeeches" — that 
its  business  meetings — should  be  held  each  year,  "for  ordering 
and  good  rule  to  be  had  and  made  amongst  them."  Absentees 
from  a  mornspeech  forfeited  one  pound  of  wax  to  St.  Luke's 
candle.  Another  rule  provided  that  the  decision  of  ambiguities 
or  doubts  about  the  forfeitures  prescribed  should  be  referred 
to  the  mayor  and  four  aldermen  of  the  city.  Rules  4  to  n, 
and  also  13,  regulate  the  taking  of  apprentices  and  the  setting 
up  in  trade;  forbid  the  employing  of  strangers ;  provide  for  the 
settlement  of  disputes  and  the  examination  of  work  not  suf- 
ficiently done  after  the  sample.  Already  the  tendency  to  limit 
the  number  of  workmen  that  might  be  employed  which  was 
later  to  prove  a  stumbling  block  to  artistic  progress  is  to  be 
noted.  On  the  other  hand  the  effort  to  keep  work  up  to  a  cer- 
tain standard,  which  was  to  mean  so  much  for  artistic  accom- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    381 

plishment  in  the  next  few  generations  must  be  noted  as  a  com- 
pensatory feature  of  the  Guild  regulations. 

Rule  12  directs  that  "when  it  shall  happen  any  brother  or 
sister  of  the  said  fraternity  to  depart  and  decease  from  the 
world,  at  his  first  Mass  the  gracemen  and  wardens  (skyvens) 
for  the  time  being  shall  offer  of  the  goods  and  chattels  of  the 
said  fraternity,  two  pence ;  and  at  his  eighth  day,  or  thirtieth 
day,  every  brother  and  sister  shall  give  to  a  poor  creature  a 
token  made  by  the  dean,  for  which  tokens  every  brother  and 
sister  shall  pay  the  dean  a  fixed  sum  of  money,  and  with  the 
money  thus  raised  he  shall  buy  white  bread  to  give  to  the  poor 
creatures"  holding  the  tokens,  the  bread  to  be  distributed  at 
the  church  of  the  parish  in  which  the  deceased  lived. 

This  twelfth  rule  with  regard  to  the  manner  of  giving  charity 
is  particularly  striking,  because  it  shows  a  deliberate  effort 
to  avoid  certain  dangers,  the  evil  possibilities  of  which  our  mod- 
ern organized  charity  has  emphasized.  According  to  this  rule 
of  the  Guild  of  St.  Luke's  at  Lincoln,  all  the  members  were 
bound  to  give  a  certain  amount  in  charity,  for  the  benefit  of  a 
deceased  member.  This  was  not,  however,  by  direct  alms,  but 
by  means  of  tokens  for  which  they  paid  a  fixed  price  to  the 
Dean,  who  redeemed  the  tokens  when  they  were  presented  by 
the  deserving  poor.  This  guaranteed  that  each  member  would 
give  the  fixed  sum  in  charity  and  at  the  same  time  safeguarded 
the  almsgiving  from  any  abuses,  since  the  member  of  the  guild 
himself  would  be  likely  to  know  something  of  the  poor  person 
and  his  deservingness,  and  if  not  there  was  always  the  question 
of  the  Dean  being  informed  with  regard  to  the  needs  of  the 
case.  All  of  this  was  accomplished,  however,  without  hurting 
the  feelings  of  the  recipients  of  the  charity,  since  they  felt  that 
it  was  done  not  for  them  but  for  the  benefit  of  a  deceased  mem- 
ber. 

How  much  the  guilds  came  to  influence  the  life  of  the  people 
during  the  next  two  centuries  may  be  best  appreciated  from 
their  great  increase  in  number  and  wealth. 

In  England,  it  is  computed  that  at  the  beginning  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century  there  were  thirty  thousand  of  these  institu- 
tions spread  over  the  country.  The  county  of  Norfolk  alone 
had  nine  hundred,  of  which  number  the  small  town  of  Wy- 


382  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

mondham  had  at  least  eleven  still  known  by  names,  one — the 
Guild  of  Holy  Trinity,  Wymondham — being  possessed  of  a 
guild-hall  of  its  own,  whilst  it  and  the  other  guilds  of  the  town 
are  said  to  have  been  "well  endowed  with  lands  and  tene- 
ments." In  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  Suffolk,  there  were  twenty- 
three  guilds ;  Boston,  Lincolnshire,  had  fourteen,  of  which  the 
titles  and  other  particulars  are  known,  whilst  in  London  their 
number  must  have  been  very  great.  Of  the  London  trade 
guilds,  Stow,  the  Elizabethan  antiquary,  records  the  names  of 
sixty  of  sufficient  importance  to  entitle  their  representatives  to 
places  at  the  civic  banquets  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII.  Many 
of  them  are  still  in  existence,  having  been  spared  at  the  time  of 
the  Reformation  on  the  plea  that  they  were  trading  or  secular 
associations.  Fifteen  of  the  largest  of  them — including  the 
merchant  tailors,  the  goldsmiths  and  the  stationers — have  at  the 
present  time  an  annual  income  of  over  $50,000  each. 

The  reasons  for  their  popularity  can  be  readily  found  in  the 
many  social  needs  which  they  cared  for.  Socialistic  cooperation 
has,  perhaps,  never  been  carried  so  far  as  in  these  medieval  in- 
stitutions which  were  literally  "of  the  people,  by  the  people, 
and  for  the  people."  Often  their  regulation  made  provisions 
for  insurance  against  poverty,  fire,  and  sometimes  against  bur- 
glary. Frequently  they  provided  schoolmasters  for  the  schools. 
Their  funds  they  loaned  out  to  needy  brethren  in  small  sums 
on  easy  terms,  whilst  trade  and  other  disputes  likely  to  give  rise 
to  ill-feeling  and  contention  were  constantly  referred  to  the 
guilds  for  arbitration.  One  of  the  rules  of  the  Guild  of  our 
Lady  at  Wymondham  thus  ordains,  that  for  no  manner  of 
cause  should  any  of  the  brothers  or  sisters  of  the  fraternity 
go  to  law  till  the  officers  of  the  guild  had  been  informed  of  the 
circumstances  and  had  done  their  best  to  settle  the  dispute  and 
restore  "unity  and  love  betwixt  the  parties."  To  assist  at  the 
burial  of  deceased  brethren,  and  to  aid  in  providing  for  the 
celebration  of  obits  for  the  repose  of  their  souls,  were  duties 
incumbent  on  all,  defaulters  without  good  excuse  being  sub- 
ject to  fines  and  censure. 

It  must  not  be  thought  that  these  tendencies  to  true  democ- 
racy were  confined  to  the  trades  guilds,  however.  The  historian 
of  the  merchant  guilds  has  demonstrated  that  they  had  the 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    383 

same  spirit  and  this  was  especially  true  for  the  great  guild 
merchant.  He  says : 

"To  this  category  of  powerful  affinities  must  be  added  the 
Gild  Merchant.  The  latter  was  from  the  outset  a  compact 
body  emphatically  characterized  by  fraternal  solidarity  of  in- 
terests, a  protective  union  that  naturally  engendered  a  con- 
sciousness of  strength  and  a  spirit  of  independence.  As  the  same 
men  generally  directed  the  counsels  of  both  the  town  and  the 
Gild,  there  would  be  a  gradual,  unconscious  extension  of  the 
unity  of  the  one  to  the  other,  the  cohesive  force  of  the  Gild 
making  itself  felt  throughout  the  whole  municipal  organism. 
But  the  influence  of  the  fraternity  was  material  as  well  as 
moral.  It  constituted  a  bond  of  union  between  the  heterogene- 
ous sokes  (classes  of  tenants)  of  a  borough;  the  townsmen 
might  be  exclusively  amenable  to  the  courts  of  different  lords, 
but,  if  engaged  in  trade  within  the  town,  they  were  all  mem- 
bers of  one  and  the  same  Gild  Merchant.  The  independent 
regulation  of  trade  also  accustomed  the  burgesses  to  self-gov- 
ernment, and  constituted  an  important  step  toward  autonomy ; 
the  town  judiciary  was  always  more  dependent  upon  the  crown 
or  mesne  lord  than  was  the  Gild  Merchant." 

Because  of  the  supreme  interest  in  everything  connected  with 
Shakespeare,  the  existence  of  one  of  the  most  important  guilds 
in  Stratford,  has  led  to  the  illustration  of  guilds'  works  there 
better  than  for  any  English  town  during  this  period.  The 
Guild  of  the  Holy  Cross  was  the  most  important  institution  of 
Stratford  and  enthusiastic  Shakespeare  scholars  have  applied 
themselves  to  find  out  every  detail  of  its  history  as  far  as  it 
is  now  available,  in  order  to  make  clear  the  conditions — social 
and  religious — that  existed  in  the  great  dramatist's  birthplace. 
Halliwell,  in  his  Descriptive  Calendar  of  the  Records  of  Strat- 
ford on  Avon,  and  Sidney  Lee,  in  his  Stratford  on  Avon  in 
the  Time  of  the  Shakespeares,  have  gathered  together  much  of 
this  information : — 'The  Guild  has  lasted,  wrote  its  chief  officer 
in  1309,  for  many,  many  years  and  its  beginning  was  from 
time  whereunto  the  memory  of  man  reaches  not."  Bowden, 
in  his  volume  on  the  Religion  of  Shakespeare,  has  a  number 
of  the  most  important  details  with  regard  to  Stratford's  Guild. 
The  earliest  extant  documents  with  regard  to  it  are  from  the 


384  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Reign  of  Henry  III.,  1216-1272,  and  include  a  deed  of  gift  by 
one  William  Sede,  of  a  tenement  to  the  Guild,  and  an  indul- 
gence granted  October  7th,  1270,  by  Giffard,  Bishop  of  Woos- 
ter,  of  forty  days  to  all  sincere  penitents  who  after  having 
duly  confessed  had  conferred  benefits  on  the  Guild. 

By  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Edward  I.,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  Fourteenth  Century,  the  Guild  was  wealthy  in  houses  and 
lands,  and  the  foundation  was  laid  of  its  chapel  and  almshouses 
which,  with  the  hall  of  meeting — the  "Rode  or  Reed  Hair- 
stood  where  the  Guild  Hall  is  at  the  present  day.  Edward  III. 
and  Richard  II.,  during  the  Fourteenth  Century,  confirmed  the 
rights  of  the  Guild  and  even  added  to  its  privileges.  Though 
it  was  a  purely  local  institution,  the  fame  of  its  good  works  had 
spread  so  wide  during  these  next  centuries  that  affiliation  with 
it  became  a  distinction,  and  the  nobility  were  attracted  to  its 
ranks.  George,  Duke  of  Clarence,  brother  of  Edward,  with 
his  wife  and  children,  and  the  Earl  of  Warwick,  and  the  Lady 
Margaret  were  counted  among  its  members,  and  merchants  of 
distant  towns  counted  it  an  honor  to  belong  to  it.  Later,  also, 
Judge  Littleton,  one  of  the  famous  founders  of  English  law, 
was  on  its  roll  of  membership. 

The  objects  of  the  Guild  were  many  and  varied  and  touched 
the  social  life  of  Stratford  at  every  point.  The  first  object  was 
mutual  prayer.  The  Guild  maintained  five  priests  or  chaplains 
who  were  to  say  masses  daily,  hour  by  hour,  from  six  to  ten 
o'clock  for  its  members,  it  being  expected  that  some  of  them 
would  be  present  at  each  of  the  masses.  Out  of  the  fees  of  the 
Guild  one  wax  candle  was  to  be  kept  alight  every  day  through- 
out the  year  at  every  mass  in  the  church  before  the  rood,  or 
cross,  "so  that  God  and  our  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  Venerated 
Cross  may  keep  and  guard  all  the  brethren  and  sisters  of  the 
Guilds  from  every  ill."  The  second  object  was  charity,  under 
which  was  included  all  the  various  Works  of  Mercy.  The 
needs  of  any  brother  or  sister  who  had  fallen  into  poverty  or 
been  robbed  were  to  be  provided  for  "as  long  as  he  bears  him- 
self rightly  towards  the  brethren."  When  a  brother  died  all 
the  brethren  were  bound  to  follow  the  body  to  the  church  and 
to  pray  for  his  soul  at  its  burial.  The  Guild  candle  and  eight 
smaller  ones  were  to  be  kept  burning  by  the  body  from  the 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.  385 

time  of  death  till  the  funeral.  When  a  poor  man  died  in  the 
town  the  brethren  and  sisters  were,  for  their  soul's  health,  to 
find  four  wax  candles,  a  sheet,  and  a  hearse  cloth  for  the 
corpse.  This  rule  also  applied  in  the  event  of  a  stranger's 
death,  if  the  stranger  had  not  the  necessary  means  for  burial. 
Nor  were  the  efforts  of  the  Guild  at  Stratford  devoted  solely  to 
the  alleviation  of  the  ills  of  mankind  and  the  more  serious  pur- 
poses of  life.  Once  a  year,  in  Easter  Week,  a  feast  of  the 
members  was  held  in  order  to  foster  peace  and  true  brotherly 
love  among  them.  At  this  time  offerings  were  made  for  the  poor 
in  order  that  they  too  might  share  in  the  happiness  of  the 
festival  time.  There  was  attendance  at  church  before  the 
feasting  and  a  prayer  was  offered  by  all  the  "brethren  and 
sisters  that  God  and  our  Blessed  Virgin  and  the  Venerated 
Cross  in  whose  honor  we  have  come  together  will  keep  us  from 
all  ills  and  sins."  This  frequent  reference  to  the  Cross  will 
be  better  understood  if  it  is  recalled  that  the  Guild  at  Stratford 
bore  the  name  of  the  Guild  of  the  Holy  Cross,  and  the  figure 
of  the  crucified  One  was  one  of  its  most  respected  symbols  and 
was  always  looked  upon  as  a  special  object  of  veneration  on 
the  part  of  the  members. 

The  thoroughly  progressive  spirit  of  the  Guild  at  Stratford 
will  perhaps  be  best  appreciated  by  the  modern  mind  from  the 
fact,  that  to  it  the  town  owed  the  foundation  of  its  famous  free 
school.  During  the  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  centuries  the 
study  of  grammar,  and  of  the  various  theoretical  branches, 
was  not  considered  the  essential  part  of  an  education.  Grad- 
ually, however,  there  had  arisen  the  feeling  that  all  the  children 
should  be  taught  the  ground-work  of  the  vulgar  tongue,  and 
that  those  whose  parents  wished  it  should  receive  education  in 
Latin  also;  hence  the  establishment  of  grammar  schools,  that 
at  Stratford  being  founded  for  the  children  of  the  members  of 
the  Guild  about  the  middle  of  the  Fifteenth  Century.  This  was 
only  the  normal  development  of  the  earlier  spirit  of  the  Guild 
which  enabled  it  to  meet  the  growing  social  needs  of  the  time. 
It  was  at  this  school,  as  reconstituted  under  Edward  VI.,  that 
Shakespeare  was  educated,  and  the  reestablishment  by  Edward 
was  only  in  response  to  the  many  complaints  which  arose  be- 
cause of  the  absence  of  the  school  after  its  suppression  by 


386  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Henry  VIII.  The  fact  that  Shakespeare  was  educated  at  an 
Edward  VI.  grammar  school,  has  often  given  occasion  for 
commentators  to  point  out  that  it  was  practically  the  Refor- 
mation in  England  which  led  to  the  establishment  of  free 
schools.  Any  such  suggestion,  however,  can  be  made  only 
in  complete  ignorance  of  the  preexisting  state  of  affairs  in 
which  the  people,  by  organization,  succeeded  in  accomplishing 
so  much  for  themselves. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  Guild  at  Stratford,  as  in  most  of  the 
towns  in  England — for  we  have  taken  this  as  an  example  only 
because  it  is  easier  to  get  at  the  details  of  its  history — was  the 
most  important  factor  in  the  preservation  of  social  order,  in 
the  distribution  of  charity,  in  the  providing  of  education,  and 
even  the  maintenance  of  the  security  of  the  life  and  property 
of  its  inhabitants.  When  it  was  dissolved,  in  1547,  Stratford 
found  itself  in  a  chaotic  state  and  had  to  petition  Edward  VI. 
to  reconstitute  the  Guild  as  a  civil  corporation,  which  he  did  by 
charter  in  1553. 

After  this  consideration  of  the  guilds  and  their  purpose 
and  success,  it  is  no  wonder  that  we  should  declare  that  the 
wind  of  the  spirit  of  democracy  was  blowing  in  England  and 
carrying  away  the  old  landmarks  of  absolute  government. 
It  is  to  the  spirit  thus  fostered  that  must  be  attributed  the  mar- 
velous progress  in  representative  government,  the  steps  of 
which  we  recall. 

In  1215,  all  England  united  against  the  odious  John  Lack- 
land and  obliged  him  to  grant  the  Magna  Charta — a  declaration 
of  national  liberty. 

In  1257,  the  Provisions  of  Oxford,  under  Henry  III.,  estab- 
lished, for  the  moment,  the  stated  recurrence  of  the  great 
national  council  of  Parliament. 

In  1265,  under  the  same  Prince,  the  earl  of  Leicester  ad- 
mitted to  Parliament  the  knights  of  the  shire  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  townspeople,  who  formed  later  the  lower 
house,  or  House  of  Commons,  while  those  personally  sum- 
moned to  attend  by  the  king  from  the  great  nobles  formed  the 
upper  house,  or  House  of  Lords. 

Beginning  with  the  year  1295,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  L, 
the  attendance  of  the  county  and  town  members  became  regu- 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.  387 

lar,  making  Parliament  really  representative  of  the  country. 

In  1309,  in  the  reign  of  Edward  II.,  Parliament  revealed  its 
possible  strength  by  putting  conditions  on  its  vote  for  taxes. 

There  were  other  factors  at  work,  however,  and  one  of 
them  at  least,  because  of  its  importance,  deserves  to  be  recalled 
here.  In  the  chapter  on  Great  Beginnings  of  Modern  Commerce 
we  call  attention  to  the  fact,  that  the  Crusades  were  responsible 
to  a  great  degree  for  the  spirit  of  enterprise  which  led  to  the 
formation  of  the  Lombard  league  of  cities,  and  later  to  the  great 
Hanseatic  League,  which  seems  to  have  taken  at  least  its 
incentive  from  the  Southern  Confederation.  In  the  chapter  on 
Louis  IX.  we  point  out  that  the  Crusades,  and  his  connection 
with  them,  far  from  being  blots  on  Louis's  career  must  rather 
be  considered  as  manifestations  of  the  great  heart  of  the  time 
which  was  awakening  to  all  needs,  and  had  its  religious  aspira- 
tions stirred  so  deeply  that  men  were  ready  to  give  up  every- 
thing in  order  to  follow  an  idea.  One  thing  is  certain,  the  Cru- 
sades did  more  to  set  ferments  at  work  in  the  social  organi- 
zation of  Europe  than  would  have  been  possible  by  any  other 
movement.  These  ferments  brought  about  two  results,  one 
the  uplift  of  the  common  people,  the  other  the  centralization 
of  power  in  the  hands  of  the  kings  with  the  gradual  diminu- 
tion of  the  influence  of  the  nobility.  While  fostering  the  spirit 
of  democracy  on  the  one  hand,  they  gave  birth  to  the  spirit  of 
nationality  and  to  all  that  this  has  accomplished  in  modern 
history. 

Storrs,  in  his  life  of  St.  Bernard,  recently  issued,  has  given 
expression  to  this  thought  in  a  very  striking  fashion.  He  says : 

"It  used  to  be  the  fashion  to  regard  the  Crusades  as  mere 
fantastic  exhibitions  of  a  temporary  turbulent  religious  fanati- 
cism, aiming  at  ends  wholly  visionary,  and  missing  them, 
wasting  the  best  life  of  Europe  in  colossal  and  bloody  under- 
takings, and  leaving  effects  only  of  evil  for  the  time  which 
came  after.  More  reasonable  views  now  prevail ;  and  while  the 
impulse  in  which  the  vast  movement  took  its  rise  is  recognized 
as  passionate  and  semi-barbaric,  it  is  seen  that  many  effects 
followed  which  were  beneficial  rather  than  harmful,  which 
could  not  perhaps  have  been  at  the  time  in  other  ways  realized. 
As  I  have  already  suggested,  properties  were  to  an  important 


388  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

extent  redistributed  in  Europe,  and  the  constitutions  of  states 
were  favorably  affected.  Lands  were  sold  at  low  prices  by 
those  who  were  going  on  the  distant  expeditions,  very  probably, 
as  they  knew,  never  to  return ;  and  horses  and  armor,  with  all 
martial  equipments,  were  bought  at  high  prices  by  the  Jews, 
who  could  not  hold  land,  and  the  history  of  whom  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages  is  commonly  traced  in  fearful  lines  of  blood 
and  fire,  but  who  increased  immeasurably  their  movable  wealth 
through  these  transfers  of  property.  Communes  bought  liber- 
ties by  large  contributions  to  the  needs  of  their  lord ;  and  their 
liberties,  once  secured,  were  naturally  confirmed  and  augment- 
ed, as  the  years  went  on.  The  smaller  tended  to  be  absorbed 
in  the  larger;  the  larger  often  to  come  more  strictly  under 
royal  control,  thus  increasing  the  power  of  the  sovereign — 
which  meant  at  the  time,  general  laws,  instead  of  local,  a  less 
minutely  oppressive  administration,  the  furtherance  of  the 
movement  toward  national  unity.  It  is  a  noticeable  fact  that 
Italy  took  but  a  comparatively  small  part  in  the  Crusades; 
and  the  long  postponement  of  organic  union  between  different 
parts  of  the  magnificent  peninsula  is  not  without  relation  to 
this.  The  influence  which  operated  elsewhere  in  Europe  to 
efface  distinction  of  custom  and  language  in  separate  com- 
munities, to  override  and  extinguish  local  animosities,  to  make 
scattered  peoples  conscious  of  kinship,  did  not  operate  there; 
and  the  persistent  severance  of  sections  from  each  other, 
favored,  of  course,  by  the  run  of  the  rivers  and  the  vast  separ- 
ating walls  of  the  Apenines,  was  the  natural  consequence  of 
the  want  of  this  powerful  unifying  force.* 

As  a  matter  of  fact  very  few  people  realize  how  much  was 
accomplished  for  the  spirit  of  democracy,  for  liberty,  for  true 
progress,  as  regards  the  rights  of  men  of  all  classes,  and  for 
the  feeling  of  the  brotherhood  of  man  itself,  by  the  Crusades. 
A  practical  money-making  age  may  consider  them  examples  of 
foolish  religious  fanaticism,  but  those  who  have  studied  them 
most  profoundly  and  with  most  sympathy,  who  are  deeply 
interested  in  the  social  amelioration  which  they  brought  about, 
and,  above  all,  those  who  look  at  them  in  the  higher  poetic 

*Storrs,  "Bernard  of   Chairvaux,"  New  York  (Scribners),  1897 
.  544-45. 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    389 

spirit  of  what  they  did  to  lift  man  above  the  sordid  cares  of 
everyday  life,  see  them  in  a  far  different  way.  Charles  Kings- 
ley  sang  in  the  poem  of  The  Saints  Tragedy : 

"Tell  us  how  our  stout  crusading  fathers 
Fought  and  bled  for  God  and  not  for  gold." 

But  quite  apart  from  the  poetry  of  them,  from  the  practical 
side  much  can  be  said  which  even  the  most  matter  of  fact  of 
men  will  appreciate.  Here,  for  instance,  are  a  series  of  para- 
graphs from  the  history  of  the  Middle  Ages  by  George  Wash- 
ington Greene,  which  he  confesses  to  have  taken  chiefly  from 
the  French,*  which  will  make  clear  something  of  the  place 
these  great  expeditions  should  be  considered  as  holding  in  the 
history  of  democracy  and  of  liberty : 

"Christendom  had  not  spent  in  vain  its  treasures  and  its 
blood  in  the  holy  wars.  Its  immense  sacrifices  were  repaid  by 
immense  results,  and  the  evils  which  these  great  expeditions 
necessarily  brought  with  them  were  more  than  compensated 
for  by  the  advantages  which  they  procured  for  the  whole  of 
Europe. 

"The  Crusades  saved  Europe  from  the  Mussulman  invasion 
and  this  was  their  immediate  good.  Their  influence  was  felt, 
too,  in  a  manner  less  direct,  but  not  less  useful.  The  Cru- 
sades had  been  preached  by  a  religion  of  equality  in  a  society 
divided  by  odious  distinctions.  All  had  taken  part  in  them,  the 
weak  as  well  as  the  strong,  the  serf  and  the  baron,  man  and 
woman,  and  it  was  by  them  that  the  equality  of  man  and  wo- 
man, which  Christianity  taught,  was  made  a  social  fact.  St. 
Louis  declared  that  he  could  do  nothing  without  the  consent  of 
his  queen,  his  wife.  It  was  from  this  period  that  we  must  date 
that  influence  of  woman  which  gave  rise  to  chivalric  courtesy, 
the  first  step  towards  refinement  of  manners  and  civilization. 
The  poor,  too,  were  'the  adopted  children  of  the  Christian 
chivalry  of  the  Crusades.  The  celebrated  orders  of  Palestine 
were  instituted  for  the  protection  of  poor  pilgrims.  The 
Knights  of  the  hospitals  called  the  poor  their  masters.  Surely 
no  lesson  was  more  needed  by  these  proud  barons  of  the  Middle 
Ages  than  that  of  charity  and  humility. 

*  New  York,  Appleton,  1867. 


390  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

"These  ideas  were  the  first  to  shake  the  stern  despotism  of 
feudality,  by  opposing  to  it  the  generous  principles  of  chivalry 
which  sprang  all  armed  from  the  Crusades.  Bound  to  the  mili- 
tary orders  by  a  solemn  vow — and  in  the  interests  of  all  Chris- 
tendom— the  knight  felt  himself  free  from  feudal  depend- 
ence, and  raised  above  national  limits,  as  the  immediate  warrior 
and  servant  of  the  united  Christendom  and  of  God.  Chivalry 
founded  not  upon  territorial  influence,  but  upon  personal  dis- 
tinction, necessarily  weakened  nobility  by  rendering  it  acces- 
sible to  all,  and  diminishing  the  interval  which  separated  the 
different  classes  of  society.  Every  warrior  who  had  distin- 
guished himself  by  his  valor  could  kneel  before  the  king  to  be 
dubbed  a  knight,  and  rise  up  the  equal,  the  superior  even,  of 
powerful  vassals.  The  poorest  knight  could  sit  at  the  king's 
table  while  the  noble  son  of  a  duke  or  prince  was  excluded,  un- 
less he  had  won  the  golden  spurs  of  knighthood.  Another  way 
by  which  the  Crusades  contributed  to  the  decay  of  feudalism 
was  by  favoring  the  enfranchisement  of  serfs,  even  without  the 
consent  of  their  masters.  Whoever  took  the  cross  became  free, 
just  as  every  slave  becomes  free  on  touching  the  soil  of  Eng- 
land or  France. 

"The  communities  whose  development  is  to  be  referred  to 
the  period  of  the  Crusades,  multiplied  rapidly;  the  nobility 
gladly  granting  charters  and  privileges  in  exchange  for  men 
and  money.  With  the  communities  the  royal  power  grew,  and 
that  of  the  aristocracy  decreased.  The  royal  domain  was  en- 
larged, by  the  escheating  of  a  great  number  of  fiefs  which  had 
been  left  vacant  by  the  death  of  their  lords.  The  kings  pro- 
tected the  communities,  favored  their  enfranchisement,  and 
employed  them  usefully  against  insubordinate  vassals.  The 
extension  of  the  royal  power  favored  the  organization  of  the 
nation,  by  establishing  a  principle  of  unity,  for  till  then,  and 
with  that  multitude  of  masters,  the  nation  had  been  little  else 
than  an  agglomeration  of  provinces,  strangers  to  one  another, 
and  destitute  of  any  common  bond  or  common  interest.  The 
great  vassals,  themselves,  often  united  under  the  royal  banner, 
became  accustomed  during  these  distant  expeditions  to  sub- 
mission and  discipline,  and  learned  to  recognize  a  legitimate 
authority;  and  if  they  lost  by  this  submission  a  part  of  their 


DEMOCRACY  AND  CHRISTIAN  SOCIALISM.    391 

personal  power,  they  gained  in  compensation  the  honorable  dis- 
tinctions of  chivalry. 

"But  it  was  not  the  national  feeling  alone  which  was  fostered 
by  the  Crusades.  Relations  of  fraternity,  till  then  wholly  un- 
known, grew  up  between  different  nations,  and  softened  the 
deep-rooted  antipathy  of  races.  The  knights,  whom  a  com- 
mon object  united  in  common  dangers,  became  brothers  in 
arms  and  formally  formed  permanent  ties  of  friendship.  That 
barbarous  law  which  gave  the  feudal  lord  a  right  to  call  every 
man  his  serf  who  settled  in  his  domains  was  softened.  Stran- 
ger and  enemy  seemed  to  be  synonymous,  and  'the  Crusaders/ 
say  the  chroniclers  of  the  times,  'although  divided  by  lan- 
guage, seemed  to  form  only  one  people,  by  their  love  for  God 
and  their  neighbor/  And  without  coloring  the  picture  too 
warmly,  and  making  all  due  allowance  for  the  exaggerations 
which  were  so  natural  to  the  first  recorders  of  such  a  move- 
ment, we  may  say  that  human  society  was  founded  and  united 
and  Europe  began  to  pass  froiv  the  painful  period  of  organi- 
zation, to  one  of  fuller  and  more  rapid  development." 

Here  in  reality  modern  democracy  had  its  rise,  striking  its 
roots  deep  into  the  disintegrating  soil  of  the  old  feudalism 
whence  it  was  never  to  be  plucked,  and  though  at  times  it  lan- 
guished it  was  to  remain  ever  alive  until  its  luxuriant  growth 
in  recent  times. 


ANIMALS  FROM  BESTIARIUM,   THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  MS. 


392  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

XXV 

GREAT  EXPLORERS  AND  THE  FOUNDATION  OF 
GEOGRAPHY. 


Geography  is  usually  considered  to  be  quite  a  modern  sub- 
ject. The  idea  that  great  contributions  were  made  to  it  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century  would  ordinarily  not  be  entertained. 
America  was  discovered  at  the  end  of  the  Fifteenth  Century. 
Knowledge  of  the  East  was  obtained  during  the  Sixteenth 
Century.  Africa  was  explored  in  the  Nineteenth  and  a  detailed 
knowledge  of  Asia  came  to  us  in  such  recent  years  that  the 
books  are  still  among  the  novelties  of  publication.  Our  know- 
ledge of  Persia,  of  Northern  India,  of  Thibet,  and  of  the  inte- 
rior of  China  are  all  triumphs  of  Nineteenth  Century  enterprise 
and  exploration.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  however,  all  portions  of 
the  East  were  explored,  the  Capital  and  the  dominions  of  Jen- 
ghis  Khan  described,  Lhasa  was  entered  and  the  greater  part 
of  China  thoroughly  explored  by  travelers  of.  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  whose  books  still  remain  as  convincing  evidence  of  the 
great  work  that  they  accomplished.  This  chapter  of  Thirteenth 
Century  accomplishment  is,  indeed,  one  of  the  most  interesting 
and  surprising  in  the  whole  story  of  the  time. 

It  is  usually  considered  that  the  teaching,  supposed  to  have 
been  more  or  less  generally  accepted,  that  the  Antipodes  did 
not  exist,  prevented  any  significant  development  of  geography 
until  comparatively  modern  times.  While  the  question  of  the 
existence  of  antipodes  was  discussed  in  the  schools  of  the  Mid- 
dle Ages,  and  especially  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  when  men's 
minds  were  occupied  with  practically  all  of  the  important  prob- 
lems even  of  physical  science,  and  while  many  intelligent  men 
accepted  the  idea  that  there  could  not  be  inhabitants  on  the 
other  side  of  the  world  because  of  physical  difficulties  which 
supposedly  made  it  impossible,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  think 
that  this  idea  was  universally  accepted;  We  have  already  called 
attention  to  the  fact  in  the  chapter  on  "What  was  Taught  at  the 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  393 

Universities,"  that  Albertus  Magnus,  for  instance,  ridiculed  the 
notion  that  men  could  not  live  with  their  heads  down,  as  was 
urged  against  the  doctrine  of  the  existence  of  antipodes,  by 
suggesting  very  simply  that  for  those  on  the  other  side  of  the 
earth  what  we  call  down  was  really  not  down  but  up.  This  ex- 
presses, of  course,  the  very  heart  of  the  solution  of  the  sup- 
posed difficulty. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  it  seems  clear  that  many  of  the  great 
travelers  and  explorers  of  the  later  Middle  Ages  harbored  the 
notion  that  the  earth  was  round.  As  we  shall  note  a  little  later 
in  mentioning  Sir  John  Mandeville's  work,  the  writer,  who- 
ever he  was  who  took  that  pseudonym,  believed  thoroughly  in 
the  rotundity  of  the  earth  and  did  not  hesitate  to  use  some  strik- 
ing expressions — which  have  been  often  quoted — that  he  had 
heard  of  travelers  who  by  traveling  continually  to  the  eastward 
had  come  back  eventually  to  the  point  from  which  they  starred. 
While  in  the  schools,  then,  the  existence  of  antipodes  may  have 
been  under  discussion,  there  was  a  practical  acceptance  of  their 
existence  among  those  who  were  better  informed  with  regard 
to  countries  and  peoples  and  all  the  other  topics  which  form 
the  proper  subject  matter  of  geography. 

It  must  be  realized,  moreover,  that  though  the  existence  of 
the  Antipodes  is  an  important  matter  in  geography,  at  this  early 
period  it  was  a  mere  theory,  not  a  condition  antecedent  to  pro- 
gress. It  was  really  a  side  issue  as  compared  with  many  other 
questions  relating  to  the  earth's  surface  and  its  inhabitants 
with  which  the  medieval  mind  was  occupied.  To  consider  that 
no  knowledge  of  geography  could  be  obtained  until  there  was 
a  definite  acceptance  of  the  right  view  of  the  earth's  surface, 
would  be  to  obliterate  much  precious  knowledge.  The  argu- 
ment as  to  the  existence  of  antipodes,  as  it  was  carried  on,  was 
entirely  outside  of  geography  properly  so-called.  It  never  in- 
fluenced in  the  slightest  degree  the  men  who  were  consciously 
and  unconsciously  laying  deep  and  broad  the  foundations  of 
modern  geography.  To  consider  such  a  matter  as  vital  to  the 
development  of  as  many  sided  a  subject  as  geography,  illus- 
trates very  typically  the  narrowness  of  view  of  so  many  mod- 
ern scholars,  who  apparently  can  see  the  value  of  nothing  which 
does  not  entirely  accord  with  modern  knowledge.  The  really 


394  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

interesting  historian  of  knowledge,  however,  is  he  who  can 
point  out  the  beginnings  of  what  we  now  know,  in  unexpected 
quarters  in  the  medieval  mind. 

As  the  story  of  these  travels  and  explorations  is  really  a 
glorious  chapter  in  the  history  of  the  encouragement  of  things 
intellectual,  as  well  as  an  interesting  phase  of  an  important 
origin  whose  foundations  were  laid  broad  and  deep  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  it  must  be  told  here  in  some  detail.  Our 
century  was  the  great  leader  in  exploration  and  geography  as 
in  so  many  other  matters  in  which  its  true  place  is  often  unrec- 
ognized. 

The  people  of  the  time  are  usually  considered  to  have  had 
such  few  facilities  for  travel  that  they  did  not  often  go  far 
from  home,  and  that  what  was  known  about  distant  countries, 
therefore,  was  very  little  and  mainly  legendary.  Nothing 
could  be  more  false  than  any  such  impression  as  this.  The 
Crusades  during  the  previous  century  had  given  the  people 
not  only  a  deep  interest  in  distant  lands,  but  the  curiosity  to  go 
and  see  for  themselves.  Pilgrimages  to  the  Holy  Land  were 
frequent,  ecclesiastics  often  traveled  at  least  as  far  as  Italy, 
and  in  general  the  tide  of  travel  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  population  must  have  been  not  very -much  less  in  amount 
than  in  our  own  day.  After  the  establishment  of  the  religious 
orders,  missionary  expeditions  to  the  East  became  very  com- 
mon and  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  as  we  shall  see,  the 
Franciscans  particularly,  established  themselves  in  many  parts 
of  the  Near  East,  but  also  of  the  Far  East,  especially  in  China. 
Many  of  those  wrote  accounts  of  their  travels,  and  so  the 
literature  of  travel  and  exploration  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  of  the  litera- 
ture of  these  times,  while  the  wonderfully  deep  foundations 
that  were  laid  for  the  science  of  geography,  are  worthy  to  be 
set  beside  the  great  origins  in  other  sciences  and  in  the  arts, 
for  which  the  century  is  so  noteworthy. 

To  most  people  it  will  come  as  a  distinct  surprise  to  learn 
that  the  travelers  and  explorers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century — 
merchants,  ambassadors,  and  missionaries — succeeded  in  solv- 
ing many  of  the  geographical  problems  that  have  been  of  deep- 
est interest  to  the  generations  of  the  last  half  of  last  century. 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  395 

The  eastern  part  of  Asia  particularly  was  traveled  over  and 
very  thoroughly  described  by  them.  Even  the  northern  part  of 
India,  however,  was  not  neglected  in  spite  of  the  difficulties 
that  were  encountered,  and  Thibet  was  explored  and  Lhasa 
entered  by  travelers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Of  China 
as  much  was  written  as  had  been  learned  by  succeeding  gen- 
erations down  practically  to  our  own  time.  This  may  sound 
like  a  series  of  fairy-tales  instead  of  serious  science,  but  it  is 
the  travelers  and  explorers  of  the  modern  time  who  have 
thought  it  worth  while  to  comment  on  the  writings  of  these 
old-time  wanderers  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  who  have 
pointed  out  the  significance  of  their  work.  These  men  de- 
scribed not  only  the  countries  through  which  they  passed,  but 
also  the  characters  of  the  people,  their  habits  and  customs, 
their  forms  of  speech,  with  many  marvelous  hints  as  regards 
the  relationship  of  the  different  languages,  and  even  something 
about  the  religious  practises  of  these  countries  and  their 
attitude  toward  the  great  truths  of  Christianity  when  they  were 
presented  to  them. 

Undoubtedly  one  of  the  greatest  travelers  and  explorers  of 
all  times  was  Marco  Polo,  whose  book  was  for  so  long  con- 
sidered to  be  mainly  made  up  of  imaginary  descriptions  of 
things  and  places  never  seen,  but  which  the  development  of 
modern  geographical  science  by  travels  and  expeditions  has 
proved  to  be  one  of  the  most  valuable  contributions  to  this  de- 
partment of  knowledge  that  has  ever  been  made.  It  took 
many  centuries  for  Marco  Polo  to  come  to  his  own  in  this  re- 
spect but  the  Nineteenth  and  Twentieth  centuries  have  almost 
more  than  made  up  for  the  neglect  of  their  predecessors.  Marco 
Polo  suffered  the  same  fate  as  did  Herodotus  of  whom  Vol- 
taire sneered  "father  of  history,  say,  rather,  father  of  lies." 
So  long  as  succeeding  generations  had  no  knowledge  them- 
selves of  the  thing's  of  which  both  these  great  writers  had 
written,  they  were  distrusted  and  even  treated  contemptu- 
ously. Just  as  soon,  however,  as  definite  knowledge  began  to 
come  it  was  seen  how  wonderfully  accurate  both  of  them  were 
in  their  descriptions  of  things  they  had  actually  seen,  though 
they  admitted  certain  over-wonderful  stories  on  the  authority 
of  others.  Herodotus  has  now  come  to  be  acknowledged  as 


396  GREATEST  OP  CENTURIES. 

one  of  the  greatest  of  historians.  In  his  lives  of  celebrated 
travelers,  James  Augustus  St.  John  states  the  change  of  mind 
with  regard  to  Marco  Polo  rather  forcibly : 

"When  the  travels  of  Marco  Pok>  first  appeared,  they  were 
generally  regarded  as  fiction ;  and  as  this  absurd  belief  had  so 
far  gained  ground,  that  when  he  lay  upon  his  death  bed,  his 
friends  and  nearest  relatives,  coming  to  take  their  eternal 
adieu,  conjured  him  as  he  valued  the  salvation  of  his  soul,  to 
retract  whatever  he  had  advanced  in  his  book,  or  at  least 
many  such  passages  as  every  person  looked  upon  as  untrue ; 
but  the  traveler  whose  conscience  was  untouched  upon  that 
score,  declared  solemnly,  in  that  awful  moment,  that  far 
from  being  guilty  of  exaggeration,  he  had  not '  described  one- 
half  of  the  wonderful  things  which  he  had  beheld.  Such  was 
the  reception  which  the  discoveries  of  this  extraordinary  man 
experienced  when  first  promulgated.  By  degrees,  however, 
as  enterprise  lifted  more  and  more  the  veil  from  Central  and 
Eastern  Asia  the  relations  of  our  traveler  rose  in  the  estima- 
tion of  geographers;  and  now  that  the  world — though  con- 
taining many  unknown  tracts — has  been  more  successfully 
explored,  we  begin  to  perceive  that  Marco  Polo,  like  Herodo- 
tus, was  a  man  of  the  most  rigid  veracity,  whose  testimony 
presumptuous  ignorance  alone  can  call  in  question." 

There,  is  many  a  fable  that  clings  around  the  name  of  Marco 
Polo,  but  this  distinguished  traveler  needs  no  fictitious  adorn- 
ments of  his  tale  to  make  him  one  of  the  greatest  explorers  of 
all  time.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  he  helped  to  introduce  many 
important  inventions  into  Europe  and  one  even  finds  his  name 
connected  with  the  mariner's  compass  and  with  gunpowder. 
There  are  probably  no  good  grounds  for  thinking  that  Europe 
owes  any  knowledge  of  either  of  these  great  inventions  to  the 
Venetian  traveler.  With  regard  to  printing  there  is  more  doubt 
and  Polo's  passage  with  regard  to  movable  blocks  for  printing 
paper  money  as  used  in  China  may  have  proved  suggestive. 

There  is  no  need,  however,  of  surmises  in  order  to  increase 
his  fame  for  the  simple  story  of  his  travels  is  quite  sufficient 
for  his  reputation  for  all  time.  As  has  been  well  said  most  of 
the  modern  travelers  and  explorers  have  only  been  developing 
what  Polo  indicated  at  least  in  outline,  and  they  have  been 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  397 

scarcely  more  than  describing  with  more  precision  of  detail 
what  he  first  touched  upon  and  brought  to  general  notice. 
When  it  is  remembered  that  he  visited  such  cities  in  Eastern 
Turkestan  as  Kashgar,  Yarkand,  and  Khotan,  which  have  been 
the  subject  of  much  curiosity  only  satisfied  in  quite  recent  years, 
that  he  had  visited  Thibet,  or  at  least  had  traveled  along  its 
frontier,  that  to  him  the  medieval  world  owed  some  definite 
knowledge  of  the  Christian  kingdom  of  Abyssinia  and  all  that  it 
was  to  know  of  China  for  centuries  almost,  his  merits  will  be 
readily  appreciated.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  was  scarcely  an 
interesting  country  of  the  East  of  which  Marco  Polo  did  not 
have  something  to  relate  from  his  personal  experiences.  He 
told  of  Burmah,  of  Siam,  of  Cochin  China,  of  Japan,  of  Java, 
of  Sumatra,  and  of  other  islands  of  the  great  Archipelago,  of 
Ceylon,  and  of  India,  and  all  of  these  not  in  the  fabulous  dream- 
land spirit  of  one  who  has  not  been  in  contact  with  the  East  but 
in  very  definite  and  precise  fashion.  Nor  was  this  all.  He  had 
heard  and  could  tell  much,  though  his  geographical  lore  was 
legendary  and  rather  dim,  of  the  Coast  of  Zanzibar,  of  the  vast 
and  distant  Madagascar,  and  in  the  remotely  opposite  direction 
of  Siberia,  of  the  shores  of  the  Arctic  Ocean,  and  of  the  curious 
customs  of  the  inhabitants  of  these  distant  countries. 

How  wonderfully  acute  and  yet  how  thoroughly  practical 
some  of  Polo's  observations  were  can  be  best  appreciated  by 
some  quotations  from  his  description  of  products  and  indus- 
tries as  he  saw  them  on  his  travels.  We  are  apt  to  think  of  the 
use  of  petroleum  as  dating  from  much  later  than  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  but  Marco  Polo  had  not  only  seen  it  in  the  Near  East 
on  his  travels,  but  evidently  had  learned  much  of  the  great 
rock-oil  deposits  at  Baku  which  constitute  the  basis  for  the 
important  Russian  petroleum  industry  in  modern  times.  He 

says: 

"On  the  north  (of  Armenia)  is  found  a  fountain  from  which 
a  liquor  like  oil  flows,  which,  though  unprofitable  for  the  sea- 
soning of  meat,  is  good  for  burning  and  for  anointing  camels 
afflicted  with  the  mange.  This  oil  flows  constantly  and  copi- 
ously, so  that  camels  are  laden  with  it." 

He  is  quite  as  definite  in  the  information  acquired  with  regard 
to  the  use  of  coal.  He  knew  and  states  very  confidently  that 


398  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

there  were  immense  deposits  of  coal  in  China,  deposits  which 
are  so  extensive  that  distinguished  geologists  and  mineralogists 
who  have  learned  of  them  in  modern  times  have  predicted  that 
eventually  the  world's  great  manufacturing  industries  would 
be  transferred  to  China.  We  are  apt  to  think  that  this  min- 
eral wealth  is  not  exploited  by  the  Chinese,  yet  even  in  Marco 
Polo's  time,  as  one  commentator  has  remarked,  the  rich  and 
poor  of  that  land  had  learned  the  value  of  the  black  stone. 

"Through  the  whole  Province  of  Cathay,"  says  Polo,  "certain 
black  stones  are  dug  from  the  mountains,  which,  put  into  the 
fire,  burn  like  wood,  and  being  kindled,  preserve  fire  a  long 
time,  and  if  they  be  kindled  in  the  evening  they  keep  fire  all 
the  night." 

Another  important  mineral  product  which  even  more  than 
petroleum  or  coal  is  supposed  to  be  essentially  modern  in  its 
employment  is  asbestos.  Polo  had  not  only  seen  this  but  had 
realized  exactly  what  it  was,  had  found  out  its  origin  and  had 
recognized  its  value.  Curiously  enough  he  attempts  to  explain 
the  origin  of  a  peculiar  usage  of  the  word  salamander  (the 
salamander  having  been  supposed  to  be  an  animal  which  was 
not  injured  by  fire)  by  reference  to  the  incombustibility  of  as- 
bestos. The  whole  passage  as  it  appears  in  The  Romance  of 
Travel  and  Exploration  deserves  to  be  quoted.  While  discours- 
ing about  Dsungaria,  Polo  says : 

"And  you  must  know  that  in  the  mountain  there  is  a  sub- 
stance from  which  Salamander  is  made.  The  real  truth  is  that 
the  Salamander  is  no  beast  as  they  allege  in  our  part  of  the 
world,  but  is  a  substance  found  in  the  earth.  Everybody  can 
be  aware  that  it  can  be  no  animal's  nature  to  live  in  fire  seeing 
that  every  animal  is  composed  of  all  the  four  elements.  Now  I, 
Marco  Polo,  had  a  Turkish  acquaintance  who  related  that  he 
had  lived  three  years  in  that  region  on  behalf  of  the  Great 
Khan,  in  order  to  procure  these  salamanders  for  him.  He  said 
that  the  way  they  got  them  was  by  digging  in  that  mountain 
till  they  found  a  certain  vein.  The  substance  of  this  vein  was 
taken  and  crushed,  and  when  so  treated  it  divides,  as  it  were, 
into  fibres  of  wool,  which  they  set  forth  to  dry.  When  dry 
these  fibres  were  pounded  in  a  copper  mortar  and  then  washed 
so  as  to  remove  all  the  earth  and  to  leave  only  the  fibres,  like 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  399 

fibres  of  wool.  These  were  then  spun  and  made  into  napkins." 
Needless  to  say  this  is  an  excellent  description  of  asbestos. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  Twentieth  Century  so  in- 
terested in  travel  and  exploration  should  be  ready  to  lay  its 
tributes  at  the  feet  of  Marco  Polo,  and  that  one  of  the  impor- 
tant book  announcements  of  recent  years  should  be  that  of  the 
publication  of  an  annotated  edition  of  Marco  Polo  from  the 
hands  of  a  modern  explorer,  who  considered  that  there  was  no 
better  way  of  putting  definitely  before  the  public  in  its  true  his- 
torical aspect  the  evolution  of  modern  geographical  knowledge 
with  regard  to  Eastern  countries. 

It  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  surprising  to  the  modern  mind  that 
Polo  should  practically  have  been  forced  into  print.  He  had 
none  of  the  itch  of  the  modern  traveler  for  publicity.  The 
story  of  his  travels  he  had  often  told  and  because  of  the  won- 
drous tales  he  could  unfold  and  the  large  numbers  he  found  it 
frequently  so  necessary  to  use  in  order  to  give  proper  ideas  of 
some  of  his  wanderings,  had  acquired  the  nickname  of  Marco 
Millioni.  He  had  never  thought,  however,  of  committing  his 
story  to  writing  or  perhaps  he  feared  the  drudgery  of  such  liter- 
ary labor.  After  his  return  from  his  travels,  however,  he 
bravely  accepted  a  patriot's  duty  of  fighting  for  his  native  coun- 
try on  board  one  of  her  galleys  and  was  captured  by  the  Geno- 
ese in  a  famous  sea-fight  in  the  Adriatic  in  1298.  He  was  taken 
prisoner  and  remained  in  captivity  in  Genoa  for  nearly  a  year. 

It  was  during  this  time  that  one  Rusticiano,  a  writer  by  pro- 
fession, was  attracted  to  him  and  tempted  him  to  tell  him  the 
complete  story  of  his  travels  in  order  that  they  might  be  put 
into  connected  form.  Rusticiano  was  a  Pisan  who  had  been  a 
compiler  of  French  romances  and  accordingly  Polo's  story  was 
first  told  in  French  prose.  It  is  not  surprising  that  Rusticiano 
should  have  chosen  French  since  he  naturally  wished  his  story 
of  Polo's  travels  to  be  read  by  as  many  people  as  possible  and 
realized  that  it  would  be  of  quite  as  much  interest  to  ordinary 
folk  as  to  the  literary  circles  of  Europe.  How  interesting  the 
story  is  only  those  who  have  read  it  even  with  the  knowledge 
acquired  by  all  the  other  explorers  since  his  time,  can  properly 
appreciate.  It  lacks  entirely  the  egotistic  quality  that  usually 
characterizes  an  explorer's  account  of  his  travels,  and,  indeed, 


400  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

there  can  scarcely  fail  to  be  something  of  disappointment  be- 
cause of  this  fact.  No  doubt  a  touch  more  of  personal  adventure 
would  have  added  to  the  interest  of  the  book.  It  was  not  a  char- 
acteristic of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  however,  to  insist  on  the 
merely  personal  and  consequently  the  world  has  lost  a  treat  it 
might  otherwise  have  had.  There  is  no  question,  however,  or 
the  greatness  of  Polo's  work  as  a  traveler,  nor  of  the  glory  that 
was  shed  by  it  on  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Like  nearly  every- 
thing else  that  was  done  in  this  marvelous  century  he  repre- 
sents the  acme  of  successful  endeavor  in  his  special  line  down 
even  to  our  own  time. 

It  has  sometimes  been  said  that  Marco  Polo's  work  greatly 
influenced  Columbus  and  encouraged  him  in  his  attempt  to 
seek  India  by  sailing  around  the  globe.  Of  this,  however, 
there  is  considerable  doubt.  We  have  learned  in  recent  times, 
that  a  very  definite  tradition  with  regard  to  the  possibility  of 
finding  land  by  sailing  straight  westward  over  the  Atlantic 
existed  long  before  Columbus'  time.*  Polo's  indirect  influence 
on  Columbus  by  his  creation  of  an  interest  in  geographical 
matters  generally  is  much  clearer.  There  can  be  no  doubt  of 
how  much  his  work  succeeded  in  drawing  men's  minds  to  geo- 
graphical questions  during  the  Fourteenth  and  Fifteenth  cen- 
turies. 

After  Marco  Polo,  undoubtedly,  the  most  enterprising  ex- 
plorer and  interesting  writer  on  Travel  in  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury was  John  of  Carpini,  the  author  of  a  wonderful  series  of 
descriptions  of  things  seen  in  Northern  Asia.  Like  so  many 
other  travelers  and  explorers  at  this  time  John  was  a  Francis- 
can Friar,  and  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  early  companions 
and  disciples  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  whom  he  joined  when  he 
was  only  a  young  man  himself.  Before  going  on  his  mis- 
sionary and  ambassadorial  expedition  he  had  been  one  of  the 
most  prominent  men  in  the  order.  He  had  much  to  do  with  its 

*My  learned  friend,  Father  DeRoo,  of  Portland,  Ore.,  who  has 
written  two  very  interesting  volumes  on  the  History  of  America  before 
Columbus,  does  not  hesitate  to  say  that  Columbus  may  even  have  met 
in  his  travels  and  spoken  with  sailors  who  had  touched  on  some  por- 
tions of  the  American  Continent,  and  that,  of  course,  the  traditions 
with  regard  to  Greenland  were  very  clear. 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  401 

propagation  among  the  Northern  nations  of  Europe,  and  oc- 
cupied successively  the  offices  of  custos  or  prior  in  Saxony  and 
of  Provincial  in  Germany.  He  seems  afterwards  to  have  been 
sent  as  an  organizer  into  Spain  and  to  have  gone  even  as  far 
as  the  Barbary  coast. 

It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  when,  in  1245,  Pope  Innocent 
IV.  (sometime  after  the  Mongol  invasion  of  Eastern  Europe 
and  the  disastrous  battle  of  Legamites  which  threatened  to 
place  European  civilization  and  Christianity  in  the  power  of 
the  Tartars)  resolved  to  send  a  mission  to  the  Tartar  monarch, 
John  of  Carpini  was  selected  for  the  dangerous  and  important 
mission. 

At  this  time  Friar  John  was  more  than  sixty  years  of  age, 
but  such  was  the  confidence  in  his  ability  and  in  his  executive 
power  that  everything  on  the  embassy  was  committed  to  his 
discretion.  He  started  from  Lyons  on  Easter  Day,  1245.  He 
sought  the  counsel  first  of  his  old  friend  Wenceslaus,  King  of 
Bohemia,  and  from  that  country  took  with  him  another  friar, 
a  Pole,  to  act  as  his  interpreter.  The  first  stage  in  his  journey 
was  to  Kiev,  and  from  here,  having  crossed  the  Dnieper  and 
the  Don  to  the  Volga,  he  traveled  to  the  camp  of  Batu,  at  this 
time  the  senior  living  member  of  Jenghis  Khan's  family.  Batu 
after  exchanging  presents  allowed  them  to  proceed  to  the 
court  of  the  supreme  Khan  in  Mongolia.  As  Col.  Yule  says, 
the  stout-hearted  old  man  rode  on  horseback  something  like 
three  thousand  miles  in  the  next  hundred  days.  The  bodies  of 
himself  and  companion  had  to  be  tightly  bandaged  to  enable 
them  to  stand  the  excessive  fatigue  of  this  enormous  ride,  which 
led  them  across  the  Ural  Mountains  and  River  past  the  northern 
part  of  the  Caspian,  across  the  Jaxartes,  whose  name  they 
could  not  find  out,  along  the  Dzungarian  Lakes  till  they 
reached  the  Imperial  Camp,  called  the  Yellow  Pavilion,  near 
the  Orkhon  River.  There  had  been  an  interregnum  in  the 
empire  which  was  terminated  by  a  formal  election  while  the 
Friars  were  at  the  Yellow  Pavilion,  where  they  had  the  oppor- 
tunity to  see  between  three  and  four  thousand  envoys  and 
deputies  from  all  parts  of  Asia  and  Eastern  Europe,  who 
brought  with  them  tributes  and  presents  for  the  ruler  to  be 
elected. 


402  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

It  was  not  for  three  months  after  this,  in  November,  that 
the  Emperor  dismissed  them  with  a  letter  to  the  Pope  written 
in  Latin,  Arabic,  and  Mongolian,  but  containing  only  a  brief 
imperious  assertion  that  the  Khan  of  the  Tartars  was  the 
scourge  of  God  for  Christianity,  and  that  he  must  fulfil  his 
mission.  Then  sad  at  heart,  the  ambassadors  began  their  home- 
ward journey  in  the  midst  of  the  winter.  Their  sufferings 
can  be  better  imagined  than  described,  but  Friar  John  who 
does  not  dwell  on  them  much  tells  enough  of  them  to  make 
their  realization  comparatively  easy.  They  reached  Kiev  seven 
months  later,  in  June,  and  were  welcomed  there  by  the  Sla- 
vonic Christians  as  though  arisen  from  the  dead.  From  thence 
they  continued  their  journey  to  Lyons  where  they  delivered  the 
Khan's  letter  to  the  Pope. 

Friar  John  embodied  the  information  that  he  had  obtained 
in  this  journey  in  a  book  that  has  been  called  Liber  Tartarorum 
(the  Book  of  the  Tartars  or  according  to  another  manuscript, 
History  of  the  Mongols  whom  we  call  Tartars).  Col.  Yule 
notes  that  like  most  of  the  other  medieval  monks'  itineraries, 
it  shows  an  entire  absence  of  that  characteristic  traveler's 
egotism  with  which  we  have  become  abundantly  familiar  in 
more  recent  years,  and  contains  very  little  personal  narrative. 
We  know  that  John  was  a  stout  man  and  this  in  addition  to  his 
age  when  he  went  on  the  mission,  cannot  but  make  us  realize  the 
thoroughly  unselfish  spirit  with  which  he  followed  the  call  of 
Holy  Obedience,  to  undertake  a  work  that  seemed  sure  to 
prove  fatal  and  that  would  inevitably  bring  in  its  train  suffer- 
ing of  the  severest  kind.  Of  the  critical  historical  value  of  his 
work  a  good  idea  can  be  obtained  from  the  fact,  that  half  a  cen- 
tury ago  an  .educated  Mongol,  Galsang  Gombeyev,  in  the  His- 
torical and  Philological  Bulletin  of  the  Imperial  Academy  of 
St.  Petersburg,  reviewed  the  book  and  bore  testimony  to  the 
great  accuracy  of  its  statements,  to  the  care  with  which  its 
details  had  been  verified,  and  the  evident  personal  character  of 
all  its  observations. 

Friar  John's  book  attracted  the  attention  of  compilers  of  in- 
formation with  regard  to  distant  countries  very  soon  after  it 
was  issued,  and  an  abridgment  of  it  is  to  be  found  in  the  Ency- 
clopedia of  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  which  was  written  shortly  af- 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  403 

ter  the  middle  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  At  the  end  of  the 
Sixteenth  Century  Hakluyt  published  portions  of  the  original 
work,  as  did  Borgeron  at  the  beginning  of  the  Seventeenth  Cen- 
tury. The  Geographical  Society  of  Paris  published  a  fine  edi- 
tion of  the  work  about  the  middle  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
and  at  the  same  time  a  brief  narrative  taken  down  from  the  lips 
of  John's  companion,  Friar  Benedict  the  Pole,  which  is  some- 
what more  personal  in  its  character  and  fully  substantiates  all 
that  Friar  John  had  written. 

As  can  readily  be  understood  the  curiosity  of  his  contempo- 
raries was  deeply  aroused  and  Friar  John  had  to  tell  his  story 
many  times  after  his  return.  Hence  the  necessity  he  found 
himself  under  of  committing  it  to  paper,  so  as  to  save  himself 
from  the  bother  of  telling  it  all  over  again,  and  in  order  that 
his  brother  Franciscans  throughout  the  world  might  have  the 
opportunity  to  read  it. 

Col.  Yule  says  "The  book  must  have  been  prepared  immedi- 
ately after  the  return  of  the  traveler,  for  the  Friar  Salimbene, 
who  met  him  in  France  in  the  very  year  of  his  return  (1247) 
gives  us  these  interesting  particulars :  'He  was  a  clever  and  con- 
versable man,  well  lettered,  a  great  discourser,  and  full  of 
diversity  of  experience.  He  wrote  a  big  book  about  the  Tartars 
(sic),  and  about  other  marvels  that  he  had  seen  and  whenevei 
he  felt  weary  of  telling  about  the  Tartars,  he  would  cause  this 
book  of  his  to  be  read,  as  I  have  often  heard  and  seen. 
(Chron.  Fr.  Salembene  Parmensis  in  Monum.  Histor.  ad 
Provinceam  Placent :  Pertinentia,  Parma  1857) .'  " 

Another  important  traveler  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  whose 
work  has  been  the  theme  of  praise  and  extensive  annotation  in 
modern  times  was  William  of  Rubruk,  usually  known  under 
the  name  of  Rubruquis,  a  Franciscan  friar,  thought,  as  the  re- 
sult of  recent  investigations,  probably  to  owe  his  cognomen 
to  his  birth  in  the  little  town  of  Rubruk  in  Brabant, 
who  was  the  author  of  a  remarkable  narrative  of  Asi- 
atic travel  during  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  whose 
death  seems  to  have  taken  place  about  1298.  The 
name  Rubruquis  has  been  commonly  used  to  designate  him 
because  it  is  found  in  the  Latin  original  of  his  work,  which  was 
printed  by  Hayluyt  in  his  collection  of  Voyages  at  the  end  of  the 


404  GREATEST.    OF  CENTURIES. 

Sixteenth  Century.  Friar  William  was  sent  partly  as  an  ambas- 
sador and  partly  as  an  explorer  by  Louis  IX.  of  France  into 
Tartary.  At  that  time  the  descendants  of  Jenghis  Khan  ruled 
over  an  immense  Empire  in  the  Orient  and  King  Louis  was 
deeply  interested  in  introducing  Christianity  into  the  East  and  if 
possible  making  their  rulers  Christians.  About  the  middle  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  a  rumor  spread  throughout  Europe  that  one 
of  the  nephews  of  the  great  Khan  had  embraced  Christianity. 
St.  Louis  thought  this  a  favorable  opportunity  for  getting  in 
touch  with  the  Eastern  Potentate  and  so  he  dispatched  at  least 
two  missions  into  Tartary  at  the  head  of  the  second  of  which 
was  William  of  Rubruk. 

His  accounts  of  his  travels  proved  most  interesting  reading 
to  his  own  and  to  many  subsequent  generations,  perhaps  to 
none  more  than  our  own.  The  Encyclopedia  Britannica  (ninth 
edition)  says  that  the  narrative  of  his  journey  is  everywhere 
full  of  life  and  interest,  and  some  details  of  his  travels  will 
show  the  reasons  for  this.  Rubruk  and  his  party  landed  on  the 
Crimean  Coast  at  Sudak  or  Soldaia,  a  port  which  formed  the 
chief  seat  of  communication  between  the  Mediterranean  coun- 
tries and  what  is  now  Southern  Russia.  The  Friar  succeeded 
in  making  his  way  from  here  to  the  Great  Khan's  Court  which 
was  then  held  not  far  from  Karakorum.  This  journey  was  one 
of  several  thousand  miles.  The  route  taken  has  been  worked 
out  by  laborious  study  and  the  key  to  it  is  the  description  given 
of  the  country  intervening  between  the  basin  of  the  Talas  and 
Lake  Ala-Kul.  This  enables  the  whole  geography  of  the  region, 
including  the  passage  of  the  River  Hi,  the  plain  south  of  the 
Bal  Cash,  and  the  Ala-Kul  itself,  to  be  identified  beyond  all 
reasonable  doubt. 

The  return  journey  was  made  during  the  summertime,  and 
the  route  lay  much  farther  to  the  north.  The  travelers  trav- 
ersed the  Jabkan  Valley  and  passed  north  of  the  River  Bal  Cash, 
following  a  rather  direct  course  which  led  them  to  the  mouth 
of  the  Volga.  From  here  they  traveled  south  past  Derbend 
and  Shamakii  to  the  Uraxes,  and  on  through  Iconium  to  the 
coast  of  Cilicia,  and  finally  to  the  port  of  Ayas,  where  they  em- 
barked for  Cyprus.  All  during  his  travels  Friar  William  made 
observations  on  men  and  cities,  and  rivers  and  mountains,  and 


' 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  405 

languages  and  customs,  implements  and  utensils,  and  most  of 
these  modern  criticism  has  accepted  as  representing  the  actual 
state  of  things  as  they  would  appear  to  a  medieval  sightseer. 
Occasionally  during  the  period  intervening  between  his  time 
and  our  own,  scholars  who  thought  that  they  knew  better,  have 
been  conceited  enough  to  believe  themselves  in  a  position  to 
point  out  glaring  errors  in  Rubruquis'  accounts  of  what  he  saw. 
Subsequent  investigation  and  discovery  have,  as  a  rule,  proved 
the  accuracy  of  the  earlier  observations  rather  than  the  mod- 
ern scholar's  corrections.  An  excellent  example  of  this  is 
quoted  in  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica  article  on  Rubruquis 
already  referred  to. 

The  writer  says :  "This  sagacious  and  honest  observer  is  de- 
nounced as  an  ignorant  and  untruthful  blunderer  by  Isaac 
Jacob  Schmidt  (a  man  no  doubt  of  useful  learning,  of  a  kind 
rare  in  his  day  but  narrow  and  long-headed  and  in  natura1  acu- 
men and  candour  far  inferior  to  the  Thirteenth  Century  friar 
whom  he  maligns),  simply  because  the  evidence  of  the  latter 
as  to  the  Turkish  dialect  of  the  Uigurs  traversed  a  pet  heresy 
long  since  exploded  which  Schmidt  entertained,  namely,  that 
the  Uigurs  were  by  race  and  language  Tibetan." 

Some  of  the  descriptions  of  the  towns  through  which  the 
travelers  passed  are  interesting  because  of  comparisons  with 
towns  of  corresponding  size  in  Europe.  Karakorum,  for  in- 
stance, was  described  as  a  small  city  about  the  same  size  as  the 
town  of  St.  Denis  near  Paris.  In  Karakorum  the  ambassa- 
dor missionary  maintained  a  public  disputation  with  certain 
pagan  priests  in  the  presence  of  three  of  the  secretaries  of  the 
Khan.  The  religion  of  these  umpires  is  rather  interesting  from 
its  diversity :  the  first  was  a  Christian,  the  second  a  Mohamme- 
dan, and  the  third  a  Buddhist.  A  very  interesting  feature  of 
the  disputation  was  the  fact  that  the  Khan  ordered  under  pain 
of  death  that  none  of  the  disputants  should  slander,  traduce,  or 
abuse  his  adversaries,  or  endeavor  by  rumor  or  insinuations 
to  excite  popular  indignation  against  them.  This  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  the  great  Tartar  Khan  who  is  usually  consid- 
ered to  have  been  a  cruel,  ignorant  despot,  whose  one  quality 
that  gave  him  supremacy  was  military  valor,  was  really  a  large, 
liberal-minded  man.  His  idea  seems  to  have  been  to  discover 


406  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  truth  of  these  different  religions  and  adopt  that  one  which 
was  adjudged  to  have  the  best  groundwork  of  reason  for  it. 
It  is  easy  to  understand,  however,  that  such  a  disputation 
argued  through  interpreters  wholly  ignorant  of  the  subject 
and  without  any  proper  understanding  of  the  nice  distinctions 
of  words  or  any  practise  in  conveying  their  proper  significance, 
could  come  to  no  serious  conclusion.  The  arguments,  there- 
fore, fell  flat  and  a  decision  was  not  rendered. 

Friar  William's  work  was  not  unappreciated  by  his  contem- 
poraries and  even  its  scientific  value  was  thoroughly  realized. 
It  is  not  surprising,  of  course,  that  his  great  contemporary  in 
the  Franciscan  order,  Roger  Bacon,  should  have  come  to  the 
knowledge  of  his  Brother  Minorite's  book  and  should  have 
made  frequent  and  copious  quotations  from  it  in  the  geographi- 
cal section  of  his  Opus  Ma  jus,  which  was  written  some  time 
during  the  seventh  decade  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Bacon 
says  that  Brother  William  traversed  the  Oriental  and  Northern 
regions  and  the  places  adjacent  to  them,  and  wrote  accounts 
of  them  for  the  illustrious  King  of  France  who  sent  him  on 
the  expedition  to  Tartary.  He  adds:  "I  have  read  his  book 
diligently  and  have  compared  it  with  similar  accounts."  Roger 
Bacon  recognized  by  a  sort  of  scientific  intuition  of  his  own,  cer- 
tain passages  which  have  proved  to  be  the  best  in  recent  times. 
The  description,  for  instance,  of  the  Caspian  was  the  best  down 
to  this  time,  and  Friar  William  corrects  the  error  made  by 
Isidore,  and  which  had  generally  been  accepted  before  this,  that 
the  Caspian  Sea  was  a  gulf.  Rubruk,  as  quoted  by  Roger 
Bacon,  states  very  explicitly  that  it  nowhere  touches  the  ocean 
but  is  surrounded  on  all  sides  by  land.  For  those  who  do  not 
think  that  the  foundations  of  scientific  geography  were  laid  un- 
til recent  times,  a  little  consultation  of  Roger  Bacon's  Opus 
Majus  would  undoubtedly  be  a  revelation. 

It  is  probably  with  regard  to  language  that  one  might  reas- 
onably expect  to  find  least  that  would  be  of  interest  to  modern 
scholars  in  Friar  William's  book.  As  might  easily  have  been 
gathered  from  previous  references,  however,  it  is  here  that 
the  most  frequent  surprises  as  to  the  acuity  of  this  medieval 
traveler  await  the  modern  reader.  Scientific  philology  is  so 
much  a  product  of  the  last  century,  that  it  is  difficult  to  under- 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  407 

stand  how  this  old-time  missionary  was  able  to  reach  so  many 
almost  intuitive  recognitions  of  the  origin  and  relationships  of 
the  languages  of  the  people  among  whom  he  traveled.  He  came 
in  contact  with  the  group  of  nations  occupying  what  is  now 
known  as  the  Near  East,  whose  languages,  as  is  well  known, 
have  constituted  a  series  of  the  most  difficult  problems  with 
which  philology  had  to  deal  until  its  thorough  establishment  on 
scientific  lines  enabled  it  to  separate  them  properly.  It  is  all 
the  more  surprising  then,  to  find  that  Friar  William  should  have 
so  much  in  his  book  that  even  the  modern  philologist  will  read 
with  attention  and  unstinted  admiration. 

With  regard  to  this  Colonel  Yule,  whose  personal  experi- 
ence makes  him  a  valuable  guide  in  such  matters,  has  written 
a  paragraph  which  contains  so  much  compressed  information 
that  we  venture  to  quote  it  entire.  It  furnishes  the  grounds 
for  the  claim  (which  might  seem  overstrained  if  it  were  not 
that  its  author  was  himself  one  of  the  greatest  of  modern  ex- 
plorers) that  William  was  an  acute  and  most  intelligent  ob- 
server, keen  in  the  acquisition  of  knowledge;  and  the  author 
in  fact  of  one  of  the  best  narratives  of  travel  in  existence. 
Col.  Yule  says: 

"Of  his  interest  and  acumen  in  matters  of  language  we  may 
cite  examples.  The  language  of  the  Pascatir  (or  Bashkirds) 
and  of  the  Hungarians  is  the  same,  as,  he  had  learned  from 
Dominicans  who  had  been  among  them.  The  language  of  the 
Ruthenians,  Poles,  Bohemians,  and  Slavonians  is  one,  and  is 
the  same  with  that  of  the  Wandals  or  Wends.  In  the  town 
of  Equinus  (immediately  beyond  the  Hi,  perhaps  Aspara)  the 
people  were  Mohammedans  speaking  Persian,  though  so  far 
remote  from  Persia.  The  Yugurs  (or  Uigurs)  of  the  country 
about  the  Cailac  had  formed  a  language  and  character  of  their 
own,  and  in  that  language  and  character  the  Nestorians  of 
that  tract  used  to  perform  their  office  and  write  their  books. 
The  Yugurs  are  those  among  whom  are  found  the  fountain 
and  root  of  the  Turkish  and  Comanian  tongue.  Their  char- 
acter has  been  adopted  by  the  Moghals.  In  using  it  they  begin 
writing  from  the  top  and  write  downwards,  whilst  line  follows 
line  from  left  to  right.  The  Nestorians  say  their  service,  and 
have  their  holy  book  in  Syriac,  but  know  nothing  of  the  Ian- 


408  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

guage,  just  as  some  of  our  Monks  sing  the  mass  without  know- 
ing Latin.  The  Tibet  people  write  as  we  do,  and  their  letters 
have  a  strong  resemblance  to  ours.  The  Tangut  people  write 
from  right  to  left  like  the  Arabs,  and  their  lines  advance  up- 
wards." 

There  were  other  matters  besides  language  and  religion  on 
which  Friar  William  made  observations,  and  though  his  book 
is  eminently  human  giving  us  a  very  interesting  view  of  his  own 
personality  and  of  his  difficulties  with  his  dragoman,  which 
many  a  modern  Eastern  traveler  will  sympathize  with,  and  a 
picture  that  includes  the  detail  that  he  was  a  very  heavy  man, 
valde  ponderosus,  which  makes  his  travel  on  horseback  for  some 
10,000  miles  all  the  more  wonderful ;  it  also  contains  a  mass  of 
particulars,  marvelously  true — or  so  near  the  truth  as  to  be  al- 
most more  interesting — as  to  Asiatic  nature,  ethnography, 
manners,  morals,  commercial  customs,  and  nearly  everything 
else  relating  to  the  life  of  the  peoples  among  whom  he  traveled. 
A  typical  example  of  this  is  to  be  found  in  the  following  sug- 
gestive paragraph : 

"The  current  money  of  Cathay  is  of  cotton  paper,  a  palm 
in  length  and  breath,  and  on  this  they  print  lines  like  those  of 
Mangu  Khan's  seal:  'imprimunt  lineas  sicut  est  sigillum 
Mangu'  " — a  remarkable  expression.  "They  write  with  a 
painter's  pencil  and  combine  in  one  character  several  letters, 
forming  one  expression:  'faciunt  in  una  figura  plures  literas 
comprehendentes  unam  dictionem'  " — a  still  more  remarkable 
utterance,  showing  an  approximate  apprehension  of  the  nature 
of  Chinese  writing. 

There  are  other  distinguished  travelers  whose  inspiration 
came  to  them  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  though  their  works 
were  published  in  the  early  part  of  the  next  century.  Some 
of  these  we  know  mainly  through  their  adaptation  and  incorpor- 
ation into  his  work  without  due  recognition,  by  that  first  great 
writer  of  spurious  travels  Sir  John  Mandeville.  Mandeville's 
work  was  probably  written  some  time  during  the  early  part  of 
the  second  half  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  but  he  used  mater- 
ials gathered  from  travelers  of  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  and 
the  beginning  of  the  next  (his  own)  century.  Sir  Henry  Yule 
has  pointed  out,  that  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  supposed 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  409 

more  distant  travels  of  Sir  John  Mandeville  were  appropriated 
from  the  narrative  of  Friar  Odoric,  a  monk,  who  became  a 
member  of  the  Franciscan  order  about  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  and  whose  travels  as  a  missionary  in  the  East  gave 
him  the  opportunities  to  collect  a  precious  fund  of  information 
which  is  contained  in  Odoric's  famous  story  of  his  voyages.  Of 
Odoric  himself  we  shall  have  something  to  say  presently. 

In  the  meantime  it  seems  well  worth  while  calling  to  atten- 
tion, that  the  accepted  narrative  of  Sir  John  Mandeville  as  it  is 
called,  and  which  may  have  been  written  by  a  physician  of  the 
name  of  John  of  Burgoigne  under  an  assumed  name,  contains 
a  number  of  interesting  anticipations  of  facts  that  were  supposed 
to  enter  into  the  domain  of  human  knowledge  much  later  in  the 
intellectual  development  of  the  race.  In  certain  passages,  and 
especially  in  one  which  is  familiar  from  its  being  cited  by  Dr. 
Johnson  in  the  preface  to  his  dictionary,  Mandeville,  to  use 
the  name  under  which  the  story  is  best  known,  shows  that  he 
had  a  correct  idea  of  the  form  of  the  earth  and  of  position 
in  latitude  as  it  could  be  ascertained  by  observation  of  the  Pole 
Star.  He  knew  also,  as  we  noted  at  the  beginning  of  this 
article,  that  there  are  antipodes,  and  if  ships  were  sent  on 
voyages  of  discovery  they  might  sail  around  the  world.  As 
Col.  Yule  has  pointed  out,  Mandeville  tells  a  curious  story  which 
he  had  heard  in  his  youth  of  how  "a  worthy  man  did  travel 
ever  eastward  until  he  came  to  his  own  country  again." 

Odoric  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken  must  be  considered 
as  the  next  great  missionary  traveler  of  this  age.  He  took 
Franciscan  vows  when  scarcely  a  boy  and  was  encouraged  to 
travel  in  the  East  by  the  example  of  his  Holy  Father  St.  Fran- 
cis, and  also  by  the  interest  and  missionary  zeal  to  convert  the 
East  which  had  been  aroused  by  Marco  Polo's  travels.  His 
long  journeys  will  be  more  readily  understood,  however,  if  we 
realize,  as  is  stated  in  the  article  on  him  in  the  Encvclopedia 
Britannica,  an  authority  that  will  surely  be  unsuspected  of  too 
great  partiality  for  the  work  of  Catholic  missionaries,  that 
"There  had  risen  also  during  the  latter  half  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  an  energetic  missionary  action,  extending  all  over  the 
East  on  the  part  of  both  the  new  orders  of  Preaching  and  Min- 
orite (or  Dominican  and  Franciscan)  Friars  which  had  caused 


410  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

members  of  these  orders,  of  the  last  especially,  to  become  es- 
tablished in  Persia  and  what  is  now  Southern  Russia,  in  Tar- 
tary  and  in  China." 

In  the  course  of  his  travels  in  the  East  Odoric  visited  Mal- 
abar touching  at  Pandarini  (twenty  miles  north  of  Calicut), 
at  Craganore  and  at  Quilon,  preceding  thence,  apparently,  to 
Ceylon  and  to  the  Shrine  of  St.  Thomas  at  Mailapur  near 
Madras. 

Even  more  interesting  than  his  travels  in  India,  however, 
are  those  in  China.  He  sailed  from  the  Hindustan  Peninsula 
in  a  Chinese  junk  to  Sumatra,  visiting  various  ports  on  the 
northern  coast  of  that  island  and  telling  something  about  the 
inhabitants  and  the  customs  of  the  country.  According  to  Sir 
Henry  Yule  he  then  visited  Java  and  it  would  seem  also  the 
coast  of  Borneo,  finally  reaching  Kanton,  at  that  time  known 
to  Western  Asiatics  as  Chin  Kalan  or  Great  China.  From  there 
he  went  to  the  great  ports  of  Fuhkeen  and  Schwan  Chow, 
where  he  found  two  houses  of  his  order,  thence  he  proceeded  to 
Fuchau  from  which  place  he  struck  across  the  mountains  into 
Chekaeng  and  then  visited  Hang  Chow  at  that  time  renowned 
under  the  name  of  Cansay.  Modern  authorities  in  exploration 
have  suggested  that  this  might  be  King  Sae,  the  Chinese  name 
for  Royal  Residence,  which  was  then  one  of  the  greatest  cities 
of  the  world.  Thence  Odoric  passed  northward  by  Nanking, 
and,  crossing  the  great  Kiang,  embarked  on  the  Grand  Canal 
and  traveled  to  Cambaluc  or  Pekin,  where  he  remained  for 
three  years  and  where  it  is  thought  that  he  was  attached  to  one 
of  the  churches  founded  by  Archbishop  John  of  Monte  Corvino, 
who  was  at  this  time  in  extreme  old  age. 

The  most  surprising  part  of  Odoric's  travels  were  still  to 
come.  When  the  fever  for  traveling  came  upon  him  again  he 
turned  almost  directly  westward  to  the  Great  Wall  and  through 
Shenshua.  From  here  the  adventurous  traveler  (we  are  still 
practically  quoting  Sir  Henry  Yule)  entered  Thibet  and  appears 
to  have  visited  Lhasa.  Considering  how  much  of  interest  has 
been  aroused  by  recent  attempts  to  enter  Lhasa  and  the  sur- 
prising adventures  that  men  have  gone  through  in  the  effort, 
the  success  of  this  medieval  monk  in  such  an  expedition  would 
seem  incredible,  if  it  were  not  substantiated  by  documents  that 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  411 

place  the  matter  beyond  all  doubt  even  in  the  minds  of  the 
most  distinguished  modern  authorities  in  geography  and  explor- 
ation. How  Odoric  returned  home  is  not  definitely  known, 
though  certain  fragmentary  notices  seem  to  indicate  that  he 
passed  through  Khorasan  and  probably  Tabriz  to  Europe. 

It  only  remains  to  complete  the  interest  of  Odoric's  wondrous 
tale  to  add  that  during  a  large  portion  of  these  years'  long 
journeys  his  companion  was  Friar  James,  an  Irishman  who  had 
been  attracted  to  Italy  in  order  to  become  a  Franciscan.  As 
appears  from  a  record  in  the  public  books  of  the  town  of  Udine 
in  Italy,  where  the  monastery  of  which  both  he  and  Odoric  were 
members  was  situated,  a  present  of  two  marks  was  made  by  the 
municipal  authorities  to  the  Irish  friar  shortly  after  Odoric's 
death.  The  reason  for  the  gift  was  stated  to  be,  that  Friar 
James  had  been  for  the  love  of  God  and  of  Odoric  (a  typical 
Celtic  expression  and  characteristic)  a  companion  of  the  blessed 
Odoric  in  his  wanderings.  Unfortunately  Odoric  died  within  two 
years  after  his  return  though  not  until  the  story  of  his  travels 
had  been  taken  down  in  homely  Latin  by  Friar  William  of  Bo- 
logna. Shortly  after  his  death  Odoric  became  an  object  of  rev- 
erence on  the  part  of  his  brother  friars  and  of  devotion  on  the 
part  of  the  people,  who  recognized  the  wonderful  apostolic  spirit 
that  he  had  displayed  in  his  long  wanderings,  and  the  patience 
and  good-will  with  which  he  had  borne  sufferings  and  hardships 
for  the  sake  of  winning  the  souls  of  those  outside  the  Church. 

Sir  Henry  Yule  summed  up  his  opinion  of  Odoric  in  the  fol- 
lowing striking  passage  which  bears  forcible  testimony  also  to 
the  healthy  curiosity  of  the  times  with  regard  to  all  these  orig- 
inal sources  of  information  which  were  recognized  as  valu- 
able because  first  hand: 

"The  numerous  MSS.  of  Odoric's  narrative  that  have  come 
down  to  our  time  (upwards  of  forty  are  known),  and  chiefly 
from  the  Fourteenth  Century,  show  how  speedily  and  widely 
it  acquired  popularity.  It  does  not  deserve  the  charge  of  gen- 
eral mendacity  brought  up  against  it  by  some,  though  the  lan- 
guage of  other  writers  who  have  spoken  of  the  traveler  as  a 
man  of  learning  is  still  more  injudicious.  Like  most  of  the 
medieval  travelers,  he  is  indiscriminating  in  accepting  strange 
tales;  but  while  some  of  these  are  the  habitual  stories  of  the 


412  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

age,  many  particulars  which  he  recited  attest  the  genuine  char- 
acter of  the  narrative,  and  some  of  those  which  Tiraboschi  and 
others  have  condemned  as  mendacious  interpolations  are  the 
very  seals  of  truth." 

Besides  Odoric  there  is  another  monkish  traveler  from  whom 
Mandeville  has  borrowed  much,  though  without  giving  him  any 
credit.  This  is  the  well-known  Praemonstratensian  Monk 
Hayton,  who  is  said  to  have  been  a  member  of  a  princely  Ar- 
menian family  and  who  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  Four- 
teenth Century  dictated  a  work  on  the  affairs  of  the  Orient 
and  especially  the  history  of  the  nearer  East  in  his  own  time, 
of  which,  from  the  place  of  his  nativity  and  bringing  up,  he  had 
abundant  information,  while  he  found  all  round  him  in  France, 
where  he  was  living  at  the  time,  the  greatest  thirst  for  knowl- 
edge with  regard  to  this  part  of  the  world.  His  book  seems 
to  have  been  dictated  originally  in  French  at  Poictiers,  and  to 
have  attracted  great  attention  because  of  its  subject,  many 
copies  of  it  being  made  as  well  as  translations  into  other  lan- 
guages within  a  few  years  after  its  original  appearance. 

The  story  of  Odoric  is  a  forcible  reminder  of  how  much 
the  missionaries  accomplished  for  geography,  ethnology,  and 
ethnography  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  as  they  did  in  succeed- 
ing centuries.  If  what  the  missionaries  have  added  to  these  sci- 
ences were  to  have  been  lost,  there  would  have  been  enormous 
gaps  in  the  knowledge  with  which  modern  scholars  began  their 
scientific  labors  in  philology.  It  may  be  a  surprise  to  mojt 
people,  moreover,  to  be  thus  forcibly  reminded  of  the  wonder- 
ful evangelizing  spirit  which  characterized  the  later  middle 
age.  Needless  to  say  these  graduates  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
universities  who  wandered  in  distant  eastern  lands,  brought 
with  them  their  European  culture  for  the  uplifting  of  the  Ori- 
entals, and  brought  back  to  Europe  many  ideas  that  \vere  to 
be  fruitful  sources  of  suggestions  not  only  for  geographical, 
ethnological,  philological,  and  other  departments  of  learning, 
but  also  in  manufactures  and  in  arts. 

We  mentioned  the  fact  that  Odoric  in  his  travels  eventually 
reached  Cambaluc,  or  Pekin,  where  he  found  Archbishop  John 
of  Monte  Corvino  still  alive  though  at  an  advanced  age,  and 
was  probably  attached  for  the  three  years  of  his  stay  to  one  of 


EXPLORATION  AND  GEOGRAPHY.  413 

the  churches  that  had  been  founded  by  this  marvelous  old  Friar, 
who  had  been  made  Archbishop  because  of  the  wonderful  power 
of  organization  and  administration  displayed  during  his  earlier 
career  as  a  missionary.  The  story  of  this  grand  old  man  of  the 
early  Franciscan  missions  is  another  one  of  the  romances  of 
Thirteenth  Century  travels  and  exploration  which  well  deserves 
to  be  studied  in  detail.  Unfortunately  the  old  Archbishop  was 
too  much  occupied  with  his  work  as  a  missionary  and  an  ecclesi- 
astic to  return  to  Europe  in  order  to  tell  of  it,  or  to  write  any 
lengthy  account  of  his  experiences.  Like  many  another  great 
man  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  he  was  a  doer  and  not  a  writer, 
and,  but  for  the  casual  mention  of  him  by  others,  the  records 
of  his  deeds  would  only  be  found  in  certain  ecclesiastical  rec- 
ords, and  his  work  would  now  be  known  to  the  Master  alone, 
for  whom  it  was  so  unselfishly  done. 

It  will  be  noted  that  most  of  these  traveling  missionaries  were 
Franciscans  but  it  must  not  be  thought  that  it  was  only  the 
Franciscans  who  sent  out  such  missionaries.  The  Dominicans 
(established  at  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century) 
also  did  wonderful  missionary  work  and  quite  as  faithfully  as 
even  their  Franciscan  brothers.  Undoubtedly  the  Franciscans 
surpassed  them  in  the  extent  of  their  labors,  but  then  the  Do- 
minicans were  founded  with  the  idea  of  preaching  and  uplift- 
ing the  people  of  Europe  rather  than  of  spreading  the  good 
news  of  the  Gospel  outside  the  bounds  of  Christianity  as  it 
then  existed.  From  the  very  earliest  traditions  of  their  order 
the  Franciscans  had  their  eyes  attracted  towards  the  East.  The 
story  that  St.  Francis  himself  went  to  the  Holy  Land  at  the 
beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  in  order  to  convert  Sala- 
din,  the  Eastern  monarch  whose  name  has  been  made  famous 
by  the  stories  of  the  Crusade  in  which  Richard  Coeur  de  Lion 
took  part,  has  been  doubted,  but  it  seems  to  be  founded  on  too 
good  contemporary  authority  to  be  considered  as  entirely  apoc- 
ryphal. St.  Francis'  heart  went  out  to  those  in  darkness  who 
knew  nothing  of  the  Christ  whom  he  had  learned  to  love  so 
ardently,  and  it  was  a  supreme  desire  of  his  life  that  the  good 
tidings  of  Christianity  should  be  spread  by  his  followers  all 
over  the  world.  While  they  did  this  great  work  they  accom- 
plished unwittingly  great  things  in  all  the  series  of  sciences 


414  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

now  included  under  the  term  geography,  and  gathered  prec- 
ious information  as  to  the  races  of  men,  their  relations  to  one 
another  and  to  the  part  of  the  earth  in  which  they  live.  The 
scientific  progress  thus  made  will  always  redound  largely  to 
their  credit  in  the  story  of  the  intellectual  development  of  mod- 
ern Europe.  Most  of  their  work  was  far  ahead  of  the  times 
and  was  not  to  be  properly  appreciated  until  quite  recent  gen- 
erations, but  this  must  only  emphasize  our  sympathy  for  those 
obscure,  patient  but  fruitful  workers  in  a  great  field  of  hu- 
man knowledge.  As  to  what  should  be  thought  of  those  who 
ignorant  of  their  work  proclaim  that  the  Church  did  not  toler- 
ate geography  it  is  hard  to  say.  Our  geographical  knowledge 
comes  mainly  from  travelers  whose  wish  it  is  to  gain  commer- 
cial opportunities  for  themselves  or  their  compatriots;  that  of 
the  Middle  Ages  was  gained  by  men  who  wished  anxiously 
to  spread  the  light  of  Christianity  throughout  the  world.  The 
geographical  societies  of  these  earlier  days  were  the  religious 
orders  who  sent  out  the  explorers  and  travelers,  furnished  them 
on  their  return  with  an  enthusiastic  audience  to  hear  their 
stories,  and  then  helped  to  disseminate  their  books  all  over  the 
then  civilized  world. 

There  is  probably  no  better  refutation  of  the  expression  so 
often  heard  from  those  who  know  nothing  about  it,  with  regard 
to  the  supposed  laziness  of  the  Monks  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
than  this  chapter  of  the  story  of  their  exploration  and  mission- 
ary labors  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  is  usually  sup- 
posed that  if  a  Monk  was  fat  he  could  not  possibly  have 
accomplished  any  serious  work  in  life.  Some  of  these  men 
were  valde  ponderosi,  very  weighty,  yet  they  did  not  hesitate 
to  take  on  themselves  these  long  journeys  to  the  East.  Their 
lives  are  the  best  illustration  of  the  expression  of  Montalem- 
bert: 

"Let  us  then  banish  into  the  world  of  fiction  that  affirma- 
tion so  long  repeated  by  foolish  credulity  which  made  monas- 
teries an  asylum  for  indolence  and  incapacity,  for  misanthropy 
and  pusillanimity,  for  feeble  and  melancholic  temperaments, 
and  for  men  who  were  no  longer  fit  to  serve  society  in  the 
world.  It  was  not  the  sick  souls,  but  on  the  contrary  the  most 
vigorous  and  healthful  the  human  race  has  ever  produced  who 
presented  themselves  in  crowds  to  fill  them." 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        415 

XXVI 
GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  MODERN  COMMERCE. 


For  our  present  eminently  commercial  age  nothing  of  all  the 
accomplishment  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  will  probably  pos- 
sess livelier  interest  than  the  fact  that,  in  spite  of  what  must 
have  seemed  insuperable  difficulties  to  a  less  enterprising  gen- 
eration, the  men  of  that  time  succeeded  in  making  such  busi- 
ness combinations  and  municipal  affiliations,  besides  arranging 
various  trade  facilities  among  distant,  different  peoples,  that 
not  only  was  commerce  rendered  possible  and  even  easy,  but 
some  of  the  most  modern  developments  of  the  facilitation  of 
international  intercourse  were  anticipated.  The  story  of  the 
rise  of  this  combination  of  many  men  of  different  nations, 
of  many  cities  whose  inhabitants  were  of  different  races 
and  of  different  languages,  of  commercial  enterprise  that 
carried  men  comparatively  much  farther  than  they  now 
go  or  trade  expeditions,  though  we  have  thought  that 
our  age  had  exhausted  the  possibilities  of  pi  ogress  in 
this  Hotter,  cannot  fail  to  have  an  interest  for  everyone 
whose  attention  has  been  attracted  to  the  people  of  this  time 
and  must  be  taken  as  a  symbol  of  the  all-pervading  initiative  of 
the  generations,  which  allowed  no  obstacle  to  hinder  their 
progress  and  thought  no  difficulty  too  great  to  be  surmounted. 

In  beginning  the  history  of  the  great  commercial  league 
which  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  first  opened  men's  minds  to 
the  possibilities  of  peace  and  commerce  among  the  nations  and 
alas !  that  it  should  be  said,  did  more  perhaps  than  any  other 
agent  except  Christianity  to  awaken  in  different  races  the 
sense  of  the  brotherhood  of  man,  the  English  historian  of  the 
Hanseatic  League,  Miss  Zimmern  in  the  Stories  of  the  Na- 
tions, said : 

"There  is  scarcely  a  more  remarkable  chapter  in  history 
than  that  which  deals  with  the  trading  alliance  or  association 
known  as  the  Hanseatic  League.  The  league  has  long  since 


416  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

passed  away  having  served  its  time  and  fulfilled  its  purpose. 
The  needs  and  circumstances  of  mankind  have  changed,  and 
new  methods  and  new  instruments  have  been  devised  for 
carrying  on  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Yet,  if  the  league 
has  disappeared,  the  beneficial  results  of  its  action  survive  to 
Europe  though  they  have  become  so  completely  a  part  of  our 
daily  life  that  we  accept  them  as  matters  of  course,  and  do  not 
stop  to  inquire  into  their  origin."  This  last  declaration  may 
seem  surprising  for  comparatively  few  know  anything  about 
this  medieval  commercial  league,  yet  the  effects  claimed  for  it 
are  only  what  we  have  seen  to  be  true  with  regard  to  most  of 
the  important  institutions  of  the  period — they  were  the  origins 
of  what  is  best  in  our  modern  life. 

Like  many  of  the  great  movements  of  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury the  origin  of  the  Hanseatic  League  is  clouded  somewhat  by 
the  obscurity  of  the  times  and  the  luck  of  definite  historical 
documents.*  There  is  no  doubt,  however,  that  just  before  the 
middle  of  the  century  it  was  in  flourishing  existence,  and  that 
by  the  end  of  the  century  it  had  reached  that  acme  of  its  power 
and  influence  which  it  was  to  maintain  for  several  centuries 
in  spite  of  the  jealousy  of  the  nobility,  of  certain  towns  that 
did  not  have  the  same  privileges,  and  even  of  the  authorities 
of  the  various  countries  who  resented  more  and  more  as  time 
went  on  the  growing  freedom  and  independence  of  these 
wealthy  cities.  The  impetus  for  the  formation  of  the  League 
seems  to  have  been  given  during  the  Crusades.  Like  so  many 
other  of  the  important  movements  of  the  time  commerce  was 
greatly  influenced  by  these  expeditions,  and  the  commercial 
spirit  not  only  aroused  but  shown  the  possibility  of  accom- 

*  Perhaps  no  better  idea  of  the  obscurity  of  the  origin  of  the  Hansa 
confederation  can  be  given,  than  is  to  be  derived  from  the  fact  that  even 
the  derivation  of  the  word  Hansa  is  not  very  clear .  Bishop  Ulfilas  in  his 
old  Gothic  translation  of  the  Scriptures  used  the  word  "hansa"  to  des- 
ignate the  mob  of  soldiers  and  servants  of  the  High  Priest  who  came  to 
take  Christ  prisoner  in  the  Garden.  Later  on  the  word  Hansa  was  used 
to  mean  a  tax  or  a  contribution.  This  term  was  originally  employed 
to  designate  the  sum  of  money  which  each  of  the  cities  was  compelled 
to  pay  on  becoming  a  member  of  the  league,  and  it  is  thought  to  be  from 
this  that  the  terms  Hansa  and  Hanseatic  League  were  eventually  de- 
rived. 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        417 

plishing  hitherto  impossible  results  in  the  matter  of  transpor- 
tation and  exchange.  The  returning  crusaders  brought  back 
with  them  many  precious  Eastern  objects  whose  possession 
was  a  source  of  envy  to  others  and  whose  value  was  rated  so 
high  as  to  make  even  distant  travel  for  them  well  worth  while. 
The  returning  crusaders  also  knew  how  cheaply  objects  consid- 
ered very  precious  in  the  West  might  be  purchased  in  the  East, 
and  they  told  the  stories  of  their  own  acquisition  of  them  to 
willing  listeners,  who  were  stimulated  to  try  their  fortunes  in 
expeditions  that  promised  such  rich  rewards. 

Besides  the  crusaders  on  their  return  through  Italy  had  ob- 
served what  was  accomplished  by  the  League  of  the  Lombard 
cities  which  had  been  in  existence  in  a  more  or  less  imperfect 
way  for  more  than  a  century,  and  at  the  end  of  the  Twelfth  and 
the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  had  begun  to  provide 
an  example  of  the  strength  there  is  in  union,  and  of  the  power 
for  good  there  is  in  properly  regulated  combinations  of  com- 
mercial interests  with  due  regard  for  civic  rights  and  privi- 
leges. This  League  of  the  Lombard  cities  was  encouraged 
by  the  popes  especially  by  Innocent  III.  and  his  successors  who 
are  usually  said  to  have  given  it  their  approbation  for  their 
own  purposes,  though  this  is  to  look  at  but  one  side  of  the  case. 
The  German  Emperors  endeavored  to  assert  their  rights  over 
Italian  territory  and  in  so  doing  came  into  collision  with  the 
popes  not  only  in  temporal  matters  but  also  in  spiritual 
things.  As  we  have  noted  in  the  short  sketch  of  the  popes  of 
the  century,  Innocent  III.  was  the  first  great  Italian  patriot 
and  original  advocate  of  Italy  for  the  Italians.  He  constant- 
ly opposed  the  influence  of  the  German  Emperor  in  Italian 
politics,  mainly,  of  course,  because  this  interfered  with  the 
power  of  the  Church,  but  to  a  very  great  degree  also  because 
it  proved  a  source  of  manifold  political  evil  for  the  Italian 

cities. 

The  Germans  then,  who  in  the  train  of  the  Emperor  went 
down  into  Italy  saw  the  working  of  this  League  of  Lombard 
cities,  talked  about  it  on  their  return,  and  were  naturally 
tempted  to  essay  what  might  be  accomplished  by  the  same 
means  on  German  territory.  These  two  elements,  the  incen- 
tive of  the  crusades  and  the  stimulus  of  the  example  of  the 


418  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Italians,  must  be  considered  as  at  the  basis  of  Hansa,  though 
these  were  only  seeds,  and  it  was  the  nurture  and  fostering 
care  of  the  German  mind  which  ever  since  the  days  of  Tacitus 
had  been  noted  as  the  freest  in  Europe,  that  gave  the  League 
its  wonderful  development. 

It  is  difficult  to  tell  how  many  towns  belonged  to  the  Han- 
seatic  League  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  but  at  the  end 
of  this  period,  Hansa,  as  it  came  to  be  called,  was,  as  we 
have  said,  in  its  most  flourishing  condition  and  we  know  some- 
thing definite  of  its  numbers  a  little  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury later.  In  1367  deputies  from  all  the  towns  met  in  the 
large  council  chamber  of  the  famous  town  hall  at  Cologne 
to  discuss  certain  injustices  that  had  been  committed  against 
the  members  of  the  League,  or  as  the  document  set  forth 
"against  the  free  German  merchants/"'  in  order  to  determine 
3ome  way  of  preventing  further  injuries  and  inflict  due  punish- 
ment. Altogether  the  deputies  of  77  towns  were  present  and 
declared  most  solemnly  "that  because  of  the  wrongs  and  the 
injuries  done  by  the  King  of  Denmark  to  the  common  Ger- 
man merchant  the  cities  would  be  his  enemies  and  help  one 
another  faithfully."  The  distant  and  smaller  cities  were  not 
expected  to  send  troops  or  even  naval  forces  but  promised 
to  give  contributions  in  money.  Such  cities  as  did  not  take 
part  in  this  movement  were  to  be  considered  as  having  for- 
feited their  membership  and  would  no  longer  be  permitted 
to  trade  with  the  members  of  Hansa. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  the  cities  were  incapable  of 
enforcing  any  such  boycott  with  effect,  the  story  of  the  town 
of  Liibeck  must  be  recalled.  Lubeck  on  one  occasion  refused 
to  join  with  the  other  Hansa  towns  in  a  boycott  of  certain 
places  in  Flanders  which  had  refused  to  observe  the  regula- 
tions as  to  trading.  One  of  these  was  to  the  effect  that  such 
vessels  as  were  lost  on  a  coast  did  not  become  the  property 
of  the  people  of  the  neighborhood,  though  they  had  a  right  to 
a  due  share  for  salvage,  but  a  fair  proportion  must  be  returned 
to  the  citizens  of  the  town  that  suffered  the  loss.  Lubeck  was 
at  the  moment  one  of  the  most  powerful  commercial  cities  in 
Germany,  and  her  citizens  seemed  to  think  that  they  could 
violate  the  Hansa  regulation  with  impunity.  For  30  years, 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        419 

however,  the  Hansa  boycott  was  maintained  and  so  little  trad- 
ing was  done  in  the  city  that  according  to  one  old  writer  "the 
people  starved,  the  markets  were  deserted,  grass  grew  in  the 
street  and  the  inhabitants  left  in  large  numbers."  Such  a  les- 
son as  this  was  enough  to  make  the  Hanseatic  decrees  be  ob- 
served with  scrupulous  care  and  shows  the  perfection  of  the 
organization. 

The  outcome  of  the  war  with  Denmark  demonstrates  the 
power  of  the  league.  The  King  of  Denmark  is  said  to  have 
scorned  their  declaration  of  war,  and  making  an  untranslatable 
pun  on  the  word  "Hansa"  called  the  members  of  the  League 
"geese  who  cackled  much  but  need  not  be  feared."  The  fleet 
of  the  League,  however,  succeeded  in  shutting  off  all  the  com- 
merce of  the  coast  of  Denmark  and  though  there  was  a  truce 
each  winter  the  war  was  renewed  vigorously,  and  with  summer 
many  of  the  Danish  cities  were  ransacked  and  plundered.  At 
the  end  of  the  second  year  Denmark  was  exhausted  and  the 
people  so  weary  of  war  that  they  pleaded  for  peace,  and  Valde- 
mar  had  to  accept  the  terms  which  the  "geese"  were  willing  to 
offer  him.  This  triumph  of  the  common  people  over  a  reigning 
monarch  is  one  of  the  most  striking  passages  in  medieval  his- 
tory. It  comes  about  a  half  century  after  the  close  of  the  Thir- 
teenth, and  is  evidently  the  direct  result  of  the  great  practical 
forces  that  were,  set  in  movement  during  that  wonderful  period, 
when  the  mighty  heart  of  humanity  was  everywhere  bestirring 
men  to  deeds  of  high  purpose  and  far-reaching  significance. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Hansa  became,  very  early  in  its 
careei,  one  of  the  firmest  authorities  in  the  midst  of  these 
troubled  times  and  meted  out  unfailingly  the  sternest  justice: 
against  those  who  infringed  its  rights  if  they  were  outsiders, 
or  broke  the  rules  of  the  League  if  they  were  its  members. 
It  was  ever  ready  to  send  its  ships  against  offenders  and  while 
it  soon  came  to  be  feared,  this  fear  was  mingled  with  respect, 
and  its  regulations  were  seldom  infringed.  It  is  a  most  inter- 
esting reflection,  that  as  its  English  Historian  says,  "never 
once  in  the  whole  course  of  its  history  did  it  draw  the  sword 
aggressively  or  against  its  own  members."  While  it  was  ever 
on  the  look-out  to  increase  its  power  by  adding  new  cities  to 
the  League,  cities  were  not  forced  to  join  and  when  it  meted 


420  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

out  punishments  to  its  members  this  was  not  by  the  levying  of 
war  but  by  fines,  the  refusal  to  pay  these  being  followed  by  the 
"declaration  of  boycott,"  which  soon  brought  the  offender  to 
terms.  War  was  only  declared  in  all  cases  as  a  last  resort,  and 
the  ships  of  the  League  were  constantly  spoken  of  and  desig- 
nated in  all  documents  as  "peace  ships,"  and  even  the  forts 
which  the  League  built  for  the  protection  of  its  towns,  or  as 
places  where  its  members  might  be  sure  of  protection,  were 
described  as  "Peace  Burgs." 

Unfortunately,  the  lessons  of  peace  that  were  thus  taught 
by  commerce  were  not  to  bear  fruit  abundantly  for  many  cen- 
turies after  the  Thirteenth.  It  is  practically  only  in  our  own 
time  that  they  have  been  renewed,  and  the  last  generation  or 
two,  has  rather  plumed  itself  over  the  fact  that  trade  was 
doing  so  much  to  prevent  war.  Evidently  this  is  no  guarantee 
of  the  perpetuation  of  such  an  improvement  in  national  or  in- 
ternational morals,  for  the  influence  of  Hansa  for  peace  came 
to  be  lost  entirely,  after  a  few  centuries.  The  cities  themselves, 
however,  that  belonged  to  the  League  gradually  became  more 
and  more  free,  and  more  independent  of  their  rulers.  It  was 
thus,  in  fact,  that  the  free  cities  of  Germany  had  their  origin, 
and  in  them  much  more  of  modern  liberty  was  born  than  has 
ever  been  appreciated,  except  by  those  whose  studies  have 
brought  them  close  to  these  marvelous  medieval  manifestations 
of  the  old  spirit  of  Teutonic  freedom. 

The  names  of  most  of  the  cities  that  were  members  of  the 
Hansa  League  are  well  known,  though  it  is  not  easy  to  under- 
stand in  the  decrepitude  that  has  come  over  many  of  them, 
how  they  could  have  been  of  so  much  importance  as  has  been 
claimed  for  them  in  the  Middle  Ages.  All  the  cities  of  the 
North  Sea  and  the  Baltic  Sea  were  united  together,  and  while 
we  think  of  these  as  German,  many  of  them  really  belonged 
to  Slav  people  at  this  time,  so  that  the  membership  of  a  number 
of  Russian  cities  is  not  surprising.  While  the  Rhenish  cities 
were  important  factors  in  the  League,  Cologne  indeed  being 
one  of  the  most  important,  Bremen  and  Hamburg  and  both 
the  Frankforts,  and  Rostock,  and  Lubeck  and  Stralsund,  and 
Tangermunde  and  Warnemunde,  were  important  members. 
Novgorod  was  founded  by  Hansa  for  the  purpose  of  trading 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.       421 

with  the  Orientals,  and  the  Volga,  the  Dnieper,  the  Dwina,  and 
the  Oder  were  extensively  used  for  the  purpose  of  transporting 
goods  here  and  there  in  central  Europe.  One  of  their  most 
famous  towns,  Winetha  in  German,  Julin  in  Danish,  disap- 
peared beneath  the  waters  of  the  Baltic  Sea  and  gave  rise  to 
many  legends  of  its  reappearance.  It  is  hard  to  realize  that  it 
was  so  important  that  it  was  called  the  Venice  of  the  North, 
and  was  seriously  compared  with  its  great  southern  rival. 

A  good  idea  of  the  intimate  relations  of  the  Hansa  towns  to 
England  and  the  English  people  can  be  obtained  from  the 
article  on  the  subject  written  by  Richard  Lodge  for  the  Ninth 
Edition  of  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica.  A  single  paragraph 
of  this  compresses  much  of  the  external  and  internal  history 
of  the  "Rise  and  Development  of  Hansa."  It  was  rather  to  be 
expected  that  the  commercial  relations  between  England  and 
the  various  cities  situated  along  the  North  Sea,  as  well  as  the 
Baltic  and  up  the  Rhine,  would  be  active  and  would  have  to  be 
submitted  to  careful  regulation.  Unless  the  modern  mind  is 
actually  brought  directly  in  touch,  however,  with  the  complex 
yet  very  practical  state  of  affairs,  which  actually  existed,  it 
will  utterly  fail  to  appreciate  how  thoroughly  progressive  and 
enterprising  were  these  medieval  peoples.  Enterprise  and 
practicalness  we  are  apt  to  think  of  as  the  exclusive  possession 
of  much  more  modern  generations.  Least  of  all  would  we  be  apt 
to  consider  them  as  likely  to  be  found  in  the  Thirteenth  Cen- 
tury, yet  here  they  are,  and  the  commercial  arrangements  which 
were  made  are  as  absolute  premonitions  of  our  modern  thought 
as  were  the  literature  and  architecture,  the  painting,  even  the 
teachings  of  science  at  the  same  period. 

"The  members  of  this  League  (Hanseatic)  came  to  England 
mostly  from  Cologne,  the  first  German  town  which  obtained 
great  importance  both  at  home  and  abroad.  Its  citizens  pos- 
sessed at  an  early  date  a  guild-hall  of  their  own  (in  London), 
and  all  Germans  who  wished  to  trade  with  England  had  to 
join  their  guild.  This  soon  included  merchants  from  Dort- 
mund, Soest  and  Munster,  in  Westphalia;  from  Utrecht,  Sta- 
vern  and  Gronmgen,  in  the  Netherlands,  and  from  Bremen 
and  Hamburg  on  the  North  Sea.  But,  when  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  the  rapidly  rising  town  of  Lubeck 


422  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

wished  to  be  admitted  into  the  guild,  every  effort  was  made  to 
keep  her  out.  The  intervention  of  Frederick  II.  was  power- 
less to  overcome  the  dread  felt  by  Cologne  towards  a  possible 
rival  to  its  supremacy.  But  this  obstacle  to  the  extension  of 
the  League  was  soon  overcome.  In  1260  a  charter  of  Henry 
III.  assured  protection  to  all  German  merchants.  A  few  years 
later  Hamburg  and  Liibeck  also  were  allowed  to  form  their 
own  guilds.  The  Hansa  of  Cologne,  which  had  long  been  the 
only  guild,  now  sinks  to  the  position  of  a  branch  Hansa,  and 
has  to  endure  others  with  equal  privileges.  Over  all  the  branch 
Kansas  rises  the  "Hansa  Alamanniae,"  first  mentioned  in  1282. 

This  article  gives  additional  information  with  regard  to  the 
many  and  varied  influences  at  work  at  the  end  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century.  It  furnishes  in  brief,  moreover,  an  excellent 
picture  of  the  activity  of  mind  and  power  of  organization  so 
frequently  displayed  during  this  period  in  every  branch  of 
life.  This  is  after  all  the  highest  quality  of  man.  The  develop- 
ment of  associations  of  various  kinds,  especially  such  as  are 
helpfully  purposive,  are  the  outcome  of  that  social  quality  in 
man's  mind  which  is  the  surest  index  of  his  rational  quality. 
Succeeding  centuries  lost  for  some  almost  unaccountable  reason 
much  of  this  faculty  of  organization  and  the  result  was  a 
lamentable  retrogression  from  the  advances  made  by  older 
generations,  so  that  it  was  only  in  quite  recent  years  that  any- 
thing like  this  old  international  comity  was  reestablished. 

The  extent  and  very  natural  development  of  this  commun- 
ity of  interests  must  ever  attract  attention.  It  is  the  first  time 
in  our  modern  history  that  it  occurs  and  men  of  some  seven 
different  races  and  tongues  were  at  last  drawn  into  it.  In  this 
it  represents  the  greatest  advance  of  history,  for  it  led  to  as- 
similation of  laws  and  of  liberties,  with  some  of  the  best  feat- 
ures of  each  nation's  old-time  customs  preserved  in  the  new 
codes.  Its  extension  even  to  Novgorod,  in  what  is  now  the  heart 
of  Russia  is  a  surprising  demonstration  of  successful  enterprise 
and  spread  of  influence  almost  incredible.  The  settling  of  the 
trade  disputes  of  this  distant  Russian  City  in  the  courts  of  a 
North  Sea  town,  is  an  evidence  of  advance  in  commercial  re- 
lations emphasized  by  the  writer  in  the  Britannica,  that  deserves 
to  be  well  weighed  as  a  manifestation  of  what  is  often  thought 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        423 

to  be  the  exclusively  modern  recognition  of  the  rights  of  com- 
merce and  the  claims  of  justice  over  even  national  feelings. 
"The  league  between  Liibeck  and  Hamburg  was  not  the  only, 
and  possibly  not  the  first,  league  among  the  German  towns. 
But  it  gradually  absorbed  all  others.  Besides  the  influence 
of  foreign  commercial  interests  there  were  other  motives 
which  compelled  the  towns  to  union.  The  chief  of  these  were 
the  protection  of  commercial  routes  both  by  sea  and  land,  and 
the  vindication  of  town  independence  as  opposed  to  claims 
of  the  landed  aristocracy.  The  first  to  join  the  League  were 
the  Wendish  tov/ns  to  the  East,  Wismar,  Rostock,  Stralsund, 
etc.,  which  had  always  been  intimately  connected  with  Liibeck, 
and  were  united  by  a  common  system  of  laws  known  as  the 
'Liibisches  Recht'  (Liibeck  Laws).  The  Saxon  and  West- 
phalian  towns  had  long  possessed  a  league  among  themselves ; 
they  also  joined  themselves  to  Liibeck.  Liibeck  now  became 
the  most  important  town  in  Germany.  It  had  already  surpassed 
Cologne  both  in  London  and  Bruges.  It  soon  gained  a  similar 
victory  over  Wisby.  At  a  great  convention  in  which  twenty- 
four  towns  from  Cologne  to  Revel  took  part,  it  was  decided  that 
appeals  from  Novgorod  which  had  hitherto  been  decided  at 
Wisby  should  henceforth  be  brought  to  Liibeck." 

After  much  travail  and  vexation  of  spirit,  after  much 
diplomacy  and  political  and  parliamentary  discussion,  after 
much  striving  on  the  part  of  the  men  in  all  nations,  who  have 
the  great  cause  of  universal  peace  for  mankind  at  heart,  we 
have  reached  a  position  where  at  least  commercial  difficulties 
can  be  referred  to  a  sort  of  international  court  for  adjudica- 
tion. The  standing  of  this  court  is  not  very  clear  as  yet. 
Special  arrangements  at  least  are  required,  if  not  special  trea- 
ties in  many  cases,  even  for  the  reference  of  such  merely  com- 
mercial difficulties  as  debt-collecting  to  it.  In  the  last  quarter 
of  the  Nineteeenth  Century  special  tribunals  had  to  be  erected 
for  the  settlement  of  such  difficulties  between  nations.  In 
the  Twentieth  Century  the  outlook  is  more  hopeful  and  the  ac- 
tual accomplishment  is  indeed  encouraging.  In  the  Thirteenth 
Century  with  the  absence  of  the  telegraph  and  the  cable,  with 
the  slowness  of  sailing  vessels  and  the  distance  of  towns  empha- 


424  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

sizing  all  the  difficulties  of  the  situation,  the  Hanseatic  League 
succeeded  in  obtaining  an  international  tribunal,  whose  judg- 
ments with  regard  to  commercial  difficulties  were  final  and  were 
accepted  by  men  of  many  different  races  and  habits  and 
customs,  and  to  which  causes  were  referred  without  any  of  the 
immense  machinery  apparently  required  at  the  present  time. 

This  is  the  real  triumph  of  the  commercial  development  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century.  While  it  may  be  astonishing  to  many 
modern  people  to  learn  how  much  was  accomplished  in  this 
utterly  unexpected  quarter,  it  will  not  be  a  surprise  to  those 
who  realize  the  thoroughly  practical  character  of  the  century 
and  the  perfectly  matter  of  fact  way  in  which  it  went  about 
settling  all  the  difficulties  that  presented  themselves ;  and  how 
often  they  succeeded  in  reaching  a  very  practical  if  not  always 
ideal  solution.  The  sad  feature  of  the  case  is  to  think  that  most 
of  this  coming  together  of  nations  was  lost  by  the  gradual  de- 
velopment of  national  feeling,  much  of  benefit  as  there  may 
have  been  in  that  for  the  human  race,  and  by  the  drawing  of 
the  language  lines  between  nations  more  closely  than  they  had 
been  before,  for  the  next  three  centuries  saw  the  development 
of  modern  tongues  into  the  form  which  they  have  held  ever 
since. 

Hansa  did  more  than  almost  any  other  institution  in  north- 
ern Europe  to  establish  the  reign  of  Law.  If  it  had  accom- 
plished no  other  purpose,  this  would  make  it  eminently  worthy 
of  the  study  of  those  who  are  interested  in  sociology  and  social 
evolution.  Before  the  time  of  Hansa  the  merchant  by  sea  or 
land  was  liable  to  all  sorts  of  impositions,  arbitrary  taxes, 
injustices,  and  even  the  loss  of  life  as  well  of  his  goods.  As 
Hansa  gained  in  power  however,  these  abuses  disappeared. 
Perhaps  the  most  noteworthy  improvement  came  with  regard  to 
navigation.  There  is  a  story  told  of  a  famous  rock  in  Brittany 
on  which  many  ships  were  wrecked  during  the  Middle  Ages. 
Even  as  late  as  the  Thirteenth  Century  sometimes  false  lights 
were  displayed  on  this  rock  with  the  idea  of  tempting  vessels 
to  their  destruction  on  it.  Everything  that  was  thrown  ashore 
in  the  neighborhood  was  considered  to  be  the  property  of  the 
people  who  gathered  it,  except  that  a  certain  portion  of  its  value 
had  to  be  paid  to  the  Lord  of  the  Manor.  This  worthy  repre- 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        425 

sentative  of  the  upper  classes  is  said  to  have  pointed  out  the 
rock  to  some  visiting  nobleman  friends  one  day,  and  declared 
that  it  was  more  precious  to  him  than  the  most  precious  stone 
in  the  diadem  of  any  ruling  monarch  in  Europe.  This  repre- 
sents the  state  of  feeling  with  regard  to  such  subjects  when 
Hansa  started  in  to  correct  the  abuses. 

It  may  be  looked  upon  as  a  serious  disgrace  to  the  Thirteenth 
Century  that  such  a  low  state  of  ethical  feeling  should  have 
existed,  but  it  is  the  amelioration  of  conditions  which  obliter- 
ated such  false  sentiments  that  constitutes  the  triumph  of  the 
period.  On  the  other  hand  we  must  not  with  smug  self-com- 
placency think  that  our  generation  is  so  much  better  than  those 
of  the  past.  It  is  easy  to  be  pharisaical  while  we  forget  that 
many  a  fortune  in  modern  times  suffers  shipwreck  on  the 
coasts  of  business  and  investment,  because  the  false  lights  of 
advertising  intended  to  deceive,  are  displayed  very  promi- 
nently, for  those  who  are  only  anxious  as  were  the  mariners  of 
the  olden  times  to  make  their  fortunes.  Doubtless  too  the  pro- 
prietors of  many  of  the  papers  which  display  such  advertise- 
ments, and  it  is  nonsense  to  say  that  they  are  unconscious  of  the 
harm  they  do,  are  quite  as  proud  of  the  magnificent  revenue 
that  their  advertising  columns  bring  to  them  as  was  the  Breton 
noble  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Man  has  not  changed  much 
in  the  interval. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  even  the  present-day  ini- 
tiation into  secret  societies  of  various  kinds  is  the  invention 
of  modern  times,  it  seems  well  to  give  some  of  the  details  of 
the  tests  through  which  those  seeking  to  be  members  of  the 
Hanseatic  League  were  subjected,  by  those  who  were  already 
initiated.  It  may  possibly  seem  that  some  of  these  customs 
were  too  barbarous  to  mention  in  the  same  breath  with  the 
present-day  initiations,  but  if  it  is  recalled  that  at  least  once  a 
year  some  serious  accident  is  reported  as  the  result  of  the 
thoughtless  fooling  of  "frat"  students  at  our  universities,  this 
opinion  may  be  withdrawn.  Miss  Helen  Zimmern  in  her  story 
of  the  Hansa  Towns  already  quoted  several  times,  has  a  para- 
graph or  two  of  descriptions  of  these  that  we  shall  quote.  It  may 
be  well  to  remember  that  these  tests  were  not  entirely  without 
a  serious  significance  for  the  members  of  the  Hansa.  Much 


426  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

was  expected  of  those  who  belonged  to  the  Hansa  Guild.  A 
number  of  precious  trade  secrets  were  entrusted  them,  and 
they  alone  knew  the  methods  and  mysteries  of  Hansa.  In  order 
that  these  might  not  by  any  possibility  be  betrayed,  the  mem- 
bers of  Hansa  who  lived  in  foreign  countries  were  forbidden 
to  marry  while  abroad  and  were  bound  under  the  severest  pen- 
alties to  live  a  life  of  celibacy.  They  were  not  supposed  to  be 
absent  from  the  houses  assigned  to  them  during  the  night,  and 
their  factories  so  called,  or  common-places  of  residence,  were 
guarded  by  night  watchman  and  fierce  dogs  in  order  to  secure 
the  keeping  of  these  rules. 

Besides  torture  was  a  very  common  thing  in  those  times 
and  a  man  who  belonged  to  a  country  that  happened  to  be  at 
war  for  the  moment,  might  very  easily  be  subjected  to  torture 
for  some  reason  or  another  with  the  idea  of  securing  important 
information  from  him.  If  the  members  of  Hansa  wanted 
to  be  reasonably  assured  that  new  members  would  not  give 
up  their  secrets  without  a  brave  struggle,  they  had  no  better 
way  than  by  these  tests,  for  which  there  was  therefore  some 
excuse.  As  to  the  brutality  of  the  tests  perhaps  Miss  Zim- 
mern  in  maidenly  way  has  said  too  much.  We  commend  her 
paragraphs  to  the  modern  committees  of  reception  of  college 
secret  societies,  because  here  as  elsewhere  this  generation  may 
get  points  from  the  Thirteenth  Century. 

"We  cannot  sully  our  pages  by  detailing  the  thirteen  differ- 
ent games  or  modes  of  martyrdom  that  were  in  use  at  Bergen. 
Our  more  civilized  age  could  not  tolerate  the  recital.  In  those 
days  they  attracted  a  crowd  of  eager  spectators  who  applauded 
the  more  vociferously  the  more  cruel  and  barbarous  the  tor- 
tures. The  most  popular  were  those  practices  known  as  the 
smoke,  water  and  flogging  games ;  mad,  cruel  pranks  calculated 
to  cause  a  freshman  to  lose  health  and  reason.  Truly  Dantesque 
hell  tortures  were  these  initiations  into  Hansa  mysteries.  Merely 
to  indicate  their  nature  we  will  mention  that  for  the  smoke  game 
the  victim  was  pulled  up  the  big  chimney  of  the  Schutting  while 
there  burned  beneath  him  the  most  filthy  materials,  sending  up 
a  most  nauseous  stench  and  choking  wreaths  of  smoke.  While 
in  this  position  he  was  asked  a  number  of  questions,  to  which 
he  was  forced,  under  yet  more  terrible  penalties,  to  reply.  If 


ORE  A  T  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        42  7 

he  survived  his  torture  he  was  taken  out  into  the  yard  and  plied 
under  the  pump  with  six  tons  of  water."  (Even  the  "Water 
Cure"  is  not  new). 

There  was  a  variety  about  the  tests  at  different  times  and 
places  that  show  no  lack  of  invention  on  the  part  of  the  mem- 
bers of  Hansa.  With  regard  to  other  water  tests  Miss  Zimmern 
has  furnished  some  interesting  details: 

"The  'water'  game  that  took  place  at  Whitsuntide  con- 
sisted in  first  treating  the  probationer  to  food,  and  then  tak- 
ing him  out  to  sea  in  a  boat.  Here  he  was  stripped  thrown  into 
the  ocean,  ducked  three  times,  made  to  swallow  much  sea-water, 
and  thereafter  mercilessly  flogged  by  all  the  inmates  of  the 
boats.  The  third  chief  game  was  no  less  dangerous  to  life  and 
limb.  It  took  place  a  few  days  after,  and  was  a  rude  perversion 
of  the  May  games.  The  victims  had  first  to  go  out  into  the 
woods  to  gather  the  branches  with  which  later  they  were  to  be 
birched.  Returned  to  the  factory,  rough  horse  play  pranks  were 
practised  upon  them.  Then  followed  an  ample  dinner,  which 
was  succeeded  by  mock  combats,  and  ended  in  the  victims  being 
led  into  the  so-called  Paradise,  where  twenty-four  disguised 
men  whipped  them  till  they  drew  blood,  while  outside  this  black 
hole  another  party  made  hellish  music  with  pipes,  drums  and 
triangles  to  deafen  the  screams  of  the  tortured.  The  'game' 
was  considered  ended  when  the  shrieks  of  the  victims  were  suf- 
ficiently loud  to  overcome  the  pandemonic  music."  Some  of 
the  extreme  physical  cruelties  of  the  initiations  our  modern 
fraternities  have  eliminated,  but  the  whole  story  has  a  much 
more  familiar  air  than  we  might  have  expected. 

Probably  the  most  interesting  feature  of  the  history  of  the 
Hanseatic  League  is  the  fact  that  this  great  combination  for 
purposes  of  trade  and  commerce  proved  a  source  of  liberty 
for  the  citizens  of  the  various  towns,  and  enabled  them  to  im- 
prove their  political  status  better  than  any  other  single  means 
at  this  precious  time  of  development  of  legal  and  social  rights. 
This  is  all  the  more  interesting  because  great  commercial  com- 
binations with  similar  purposes  in  modern  times  have  usually 
proved  fruitful  rather  of  opposite  results.  A  few  persons  have 
been  very  much  benefited  by  them,  or  at  least  have  made  much 
money  by  them,  which  is  quite  another  thing,  though  money  is 


428  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

supposed  to  represent  power  and  influence,  but  the  great  mass 
of  the  people  have  been  deprived  of  opportunities  to  rise  and 
have  had  taken  from  them  many  chances  for  the  exercise  of  in- 
itiative that  existed  before. 

There  is  a  curious  effect  of  Hansa  upon  the  political  fortunes 
of  the  people  of  the  cities  that  were  members  of  the  League 
which  deserves  to  be  carefully  studied.  As  with  regard  to  so 
many  other  improvements  that  have  come  in  the  history  of  the 
race,  it  was  not  a  question  so  much  of  the  recognition  of  great 
principles  as  of  money  and  revenues  that  proved  the  origin  of 
amelioration  of  civic  conditions.  These  commercial  cities  ac- 
cumulated wealth.  Money  was  necessary  for  their  rulers  for 
the  maintenance  of  their  power  and  above  all  for  the  waging 
of  war.  In  return  for  moneys  given  for  such  purposes  the  cities 
claimed  for  the  inhabitants  and  were  granted  many  privileges. 
These  became  perpetuated  and  as  time  went  on  were  added 
to  as  new  opportunities  for  the  collection  of  additional  reven- 
ues occurred,  until  finally  an  important  set  of  fundamental 
rights  with  documentary  confirmation  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
city  authorities.  One  would  like  to  think  that  this  state  of  affairs 
developed  as  the  result  of  the  recognition  on  the  part  of  the 
ruling  sovereign,  of  the  benefits  that  were  conferred  on  his 
realm  by  having  in  it,  or  associated  with  it,  an  important  trad- 
ing city  whose  enterprising  citizens  gave  occupation  to  many 
hands.  This  was  very  rarely  the  case,  however,  but  as  was  true 
of  the  legal  rights  obtained  by  England's  citizens  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  it  was  largely  a  question  of  the  coordina- 
tion of  taxation  and  legislative  representation  and  the  conse- 
quent attainment  of  privileges. 

The  most  important  effect  on  the  life  of  Europe  and  the 
growth  of  civilization  that  the  Hanseatic  League  exerted,  was 
its  success  in  showing  that  people  of  many  different  nations 
and  races,  living  under  very  different  circumstances,  might  still 
be  united  under  similar  laws  that  would  enable  them  to  accom- 
plish certain  objects  which  they  had  in  view.  Germans,  Slavs 
and  English  learned  to  live  in  one  another's  towns  and  while 
observing  the  customs  of  these  various  places  maintained  the 
privileges  of  their  homes.  The  mutual  influence  of  these  people 
on  one  another,  many  of  them  being  the  most  practical  and  en- 


GREAT  BEGINNINGS  OF  COMMERCE.        429 

terprisftig  individuals  of  the  time,  could  scarcely  fail  to  produce 
noteworthy  effects  in  broadening  the  minds  of  those  with  whom 
they  came  in  contact.  It  is  to  this  period  that  we  must  trace  the 
beginnings  of  international  law.  Hansa  showed  the  world  how 
much  commercial  relations  were  facilitated  by  uniform  laws 
and  by  just  treatment  of  even  the  citizens  of  foreign  countries. 
It  is  to  commerce  that  we  owe  the  first  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  the  people  of  other  countries  even  in  time  of  war.  If  the 
Hanseatic  League  had  done  nothing  else  but  this,  it  must  be 
considered  as  an  important  factor  in  the  development  of  our 
modern  civilization  and  an  element  of  influence  great  as  any 
other  in  this  wonderful  century. 


HINGE  (CATHEDRAL,  SCHLESTADT) 


430 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


APPENDIX. 

SO -GAINED  HISTORY. 
RULERS. 


EMPERORS  OF  GERMANY. 

Otho    IV 1198-1218 

Frederick    II 1212-1250 

Conrad    IV 1250-1254 

William    of    Holland.  .1254-1256 
Richard  Earl  of  Cornwall 

1257-1273 
Rudolph  of  Hapsburg.  1273-1291 

Adolph    of    Nassau 1292-1298 

Albert    of    Austria 1298-1308 

KINGS    OF   SCOTLAND. 

William    1175-1214 

Alexander    II 1214-1249 

Alexander    III 1249-1286 

Margaret     1286-1292 

John    Balliol 1292-1296 

Interregnum    1296-1306 

KINGS  OF  CASTILE  AND 
LEON. 

Alfonso    IX 1188-1214 

Henry    1 1214-1217 

St.    Ferdinand    III. ..  .1217-1252 

Alfonso    X 1252-1284 

Sancho    IV 1284-1295 

Ferdinand     IV 1295-1312 


KINGS   OF   ENGLAND. 

John    Lackland 1199-1216 

Henry    III -. 1216-1272 

Edward   1 1272-1307 

KINGS  OF  FRANCE. 

Philip    II 1180-1223 

Louis    VIII 1223-1226 

Louis    IX 1226-1270 

Philip   III 1270-1285 

Louis    IV 1314-1316 

KINGS   OF   ARAGON. 

Pedro    II 1196-1213 

James   L,  the  Conqueror 

1215-1276 

Pedro    III 1276-1285 

Alfonso    III 1285-1291 

James    II 1291-1327 

KINGS  OF  NAPLES. 

Conrad     1250-1254 

Conradin     1254-1258 

Manfred     1258-1266 

Charles   of   Anjou 1266-1285 

Charles    1285-1309 


EVENTS. 


1202. — Fourth  great  crusade 
under  Boniface,  marquis  of 
Montferrat. 

1204. — The  English  stripped  of 
Normandy,  etc.,  by  Philip 
Augustus  of  France. 

1206. — Jenghis-Khan:  founda- 
tion of  the  great  empire  of  the 
Moguls. 


1212.— 
and  ta 
Africa. 


of 


a.  y  »>.  ^--defeat 
Almohads      of 


ac- 


^- 
knowledges  himself  vassal  of  the 
pope. 

1213.—  Battle  of  Bouvines  won 
by  Philip  Augustus. 

1215.  —  Magna  Charta.  The 
palatinate  of  the  Rhine  goes  to 
the  house  of  Wittelsbach. 

1217.  —  Crusade  of  Andrew  II., 
King  of  Hungary. 

1218.—  Extinction  of  the  dukes 
of  Zarringuia:  Switzerland  be~ 


APPENDIX. 


431 


comes    an    immediate    province 
of  the  empire. 

1222. — Charter  or  decree  of 
Andrew  II.,  basis  of  the  Hun- 
garian constitution. 

1226. — Renewal  of  the  League 
of  Lombardy  to  oppose  the 
Emperor  Frederick  II. 

1227. — Battle  of  Bornhoeved 
in  Holstein:  Waldemar  II., 
K;ng  of  Denmark,  loses  his  con- 
quests on  the  southern  coast  of 
the  Baltic. 

1228. — Crusade  of  the  Em- 
peror Frederick  II. 

1230.  —  The  Teutonic  order 
establishes  itself  in  Prussia. 
Conquest  of  the  Balearic  islands 
by  the  King  of  Aragon. 

1235. — Formation  of  the 
Duchy  of  Brunswick  in  favor 
of  the  house  of  the  Guelphs. 

1236. — Conquest  of  the  King- 
doms of  Cordova,  Murcia  and 
Seville  by  the  Castilians. 

1237. — Conciuest  of  Russia  by 
Baton-Khan:  origin  of  the 
Mogul  or  Tartar  horde  of 
Kaptschak. 

1241. — Invasion  of  Poland, 
Silesia,  and  Hungary  by  the 
Moguls. 

1248. — Crusade  of  St.  Louis, 
King  of  France. 

1250. — Beginning  of  the  great 
interregnum  in  Germany. 

1254. — Accessions  of  the  em- 
perors of  different  houses  in 
Germany.  End  of  the  dominion 
of  the  Agubites  in  Egypt  and 
Syria;  beginning  of  the  empire 
of  the  Mamelukes. 

1256. — Enfranchisement  of  the 
serfs  at  Bologna  in  Italy. 

1261. — Michel  Paleologus,  em- 
peror of  Nice,  takes  Constanti- 
nople; end  of  the  empire  of  the 
Latins. 


1265.—  Accession  of  the  house 
of  Anjou  to  the  throne  of  the 
Two  Sicilies. 

1266.  —  Admission  of  the  Com- 
mons to  the  Parliament  of  Eng- 

Iand- 


1268.  —  Corradino  decapitated 
at  Naples;  extinction  of  the 
house  of  Hohenstaufen.  Suabia 
and  Franconia  become  immedi- 
ate provinces  of  the  empire. 

1271.  —  The  county    of    Tou- 

louse   passes  to    the    King    of 

France,    and  the    Venaissin    to 
the  Pope. 

<-     1273.  —  Accession   of   the   Em- 

^peror  Rudolph  of  Hapsburg  to 

s  the  throne  of  the  empire:  first 

election  by  the  seven  electors. 

1282.—  Conquest  of  Wales  by 
the  King  of  England. 

1282.  —  The    Sicilian    Vespers, 
the  kingdom  of  Sicily  passes  to 
the  King  of  Aragon.  The  Emper- 
or, Rudolph  gives  to  his  sons  the 
duchies  of  Austria;  foundation  of 
the  house  of  Hapsburg. 

1283.  —  The      Teutonic      order 
completes      the      conquest      of 
Prussia. 

1289.  —  Extinction  of  the  male 
line  of  the  old   race  of  Scotch 
kings.      Contest   of    Baliol    and 
Bruce. 

1290.  —  Decline  of  the  republic 
of    Piza.      Aggrandizement    of 
that  of  Genoa. 

1291.—  Taking  of  Ptolemais 
and  Tyre  by  the  Mamelukes. 
End  of  the  crusades. 

1294.  —  Decline  of  the  Mogul 
empire  at  the  death  of  Kublai- 
Khan. 

1298.  —  Introduction  of  an  he- 
reditary aristocracy  at  Venice. 

1300.  —  Foundation  of  the 
modern  Turkish  empire  by 
Ottoman  I.  First  Jubilee  pro- 
claimed by  Pope  Boniface  VIII. 


432  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

APPENDIX  II. 

TWENTY-SIX  CHAPTERS  THAT  MIGHT  HAVE  BEEN. 
I.    AMERICA  IN  THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY. 

To  most  people  it  would  seem  quite  out  of  the  question  that  a 
chapter  on  America  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  might  have  been  writ- 
ten. One  of  the  most  surprising  chapters  for  most  readers  in  the 
previous  edition  was  that  on  Great  Explorers  and  the  Foundation  of 
Geography,  for  it  was  a  revelation  to  learn  that  Thirteenth  Century 
travelers  had  anticipated  all  of  our  discoveries  in  the  Far  and  in  the 
Near  East  seven  centuries  ago.  Certain  documents  have  turned  up, 
however,  which  make  it  very  clear  that  with  the  same  motives  as 
those  which  urged  Eastern  travelers,  Europeans  went  just  as  far 
towards  the  West  at  this  time.  Documents  found  in  the  Vatican 
Archives  in  1903  and  exhibited  at  St.  Louis  in  1904,  have  set  at  rest 
finally  and  absolutely  the  long  disputed  question  of  the  discovery  of 
America  by  the  Norsemen,  and  in  connection  with  these  the  story  of 
America  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  might  well  have  been  told.  There 
is  a  letter  from  Pope  Innocent  III.,  dated  February  13,  1206,  addressed 
to  the  Archbishop  of  Norway,  who  held  jurisdiction  over  Green- 
land, which  shows  not  only  the  presence  of  the  Norsemen  on  the 
American  Continent  at  this  time,  but  also  that  they  had  been  here 
for  a  considerable  period,  and  that  there  were  a  number  of  churches 
and  pastors  and  large  flocks  in  whom  the  Roman  See  had  a  lively  in- 
terest. There  are  Americana  from  three  other  Popes  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century.  John  XXI.  wrote,  in  1276,  Nicholas  III.  two  letters, 
one  dated  January  31,  1279,  and  another  June  9,  1279,  and  Martin  III. 
wrote  1282.  We  have  inserted  on  the  opposite  page  a  reproduction  of 
a  portion  of  the  first  Papal  document  extant  relating  to  America,  the 
letter  of  Pope  Innocent  III.,  taken  from  "The  Norse  Discovery  of 
America"  (The  Norraena  Society,  N.  Y.,  1908).  The  word  Grene- 
landie,  underscored,  indicates  the  subject.  The  writing  as  an  example 
of  the  chirography  of  the  century  is  of  interest. 

II.    A  REPRESENTATIVE  UPPER  HOUSE. 

In  most  historical  attempts  at  government  by  the  people  it  has 
been  recognized  that  legislation  is  better  balanced  if  there  are  two 
chambers  in  the  law-making  body,  one  directly  elected  by  the  people, 
the  other  indirectly  chosen  and  representing  important  vested  interests 
that  are  likely  to  make  its  members  conservative.  The  initiative  for 
legislation  comes,  as  a  rule,  from  the  direct  representatives  of  the 
people,  while  the  upper  chamber  represses  radical  law-making  or 


etutrut 


APPENDIX.  433 


trnptk?  j?  tmtu*rtum  m-bc  nue  £  fe  tuit  £  k$jaw<  fuay  omigfoa  cccvuje 
*  Cttmpp*  ftutntctrur  jiXoic^.  ^  twfrujta  fubfteur  fe  .  nip; 


t*  .V<5ngcnt>t£»  tni*  qu*  in  *-cgno  ttorwcie- 

m  tttuutaltT 


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in  Tnaaan«.  talmru  Hbt  credttu 


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«tr»pblie  batur.-z  «^  «pi  »:  wbi 


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tm  At  Cictst  mifl^t  CpTl^mu^  unuUa^mtaJt  tuajj^f  Coliimo?>o  m*l9  tm  fr 
tM4.7sixfctc.qut  txiferf  Icg^-tir  tnimptt.tLtuuicare^nt.  ^n^y^uu  €en4  dtit  . 


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PART  OF  LETTER  OF  POPE  INNOCENT  III.   MENTIONING  GREENLAND. 


434  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

sudden  changes  in  legislative  policy,  yet  does  not  hamper  too  much 
the  progress  of  democracy.  During  the  last  few  years  a  crisis  in 
English  politics  has  led  to  a  very  general  demand  for  a  modification 
of  the  status  of  the  House  of  Lords,  while  almost  similar  conditions 
have  led  to  the  beginning  at  least  of  a  similar  demand  for  the  modi- 
fication of  our  Senate  in  this  country.  Both  these  upper  chambers 
have  come  to  represent  vested  interests  to  too  great  a  degree.  The 
House  of  Lords  has  been  the  subject  of  special  deprecation.  The  remark 
is  sometimes  made  that  it  is  unfortunate  that  England  is  weighted 
down  by  this  political  incubus,  the  House  of  Lords,  which  is  spoken 
of  as  a  heritage  from  the  Middle  Ages.  The  general  impression,  of 
course,  is  that  the  English  House  of  Lords,  as  at  present  constituted, 
comes  down  from  the  oldest  times  of  constitutional  government  in 
England.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  untrue  than  any  such  idea. 

The  old  upper  chamber  of  England,  the  medieval  House  of  Lords, 
was  an  eminently  representative  body.  Out  of  the  625  or  more  of 
members  of  the  English  House  of  Lords  at  the  present  time  about  five 
hundred  and  fifty  hold  their  seats  by  heredity.  Only  about  seventy- 
five  are  in  some  sense  elective.  At  least  one-half  of  these  elected 
peers,  however,  must  be  chosen  from  the  hereditary  nobility  of  Ire- 
land and  Scotland.  Nearly  nineteen-twentieths  of  the  membership  of 
the  House  of  Lords,  as  at  present  constituted,  owe  their  place  in 
national  legislation  entirely  to  heredity.  Until  the  reformation  so- 
called  this  was  not  so.  More  than  one-half  of  the  English  House  of 
Lords,  a  good  working  majority,  consisted  of  the  Lords  spiritual. 
Besides  the  Bishops  and  Archbishops  there  were  the  Abbots  and  Priors 
of  monasteries,  and  the  masters  of  religious  orders.  These  men  as  a 
rule  had  come  up  from  the  people.  They  had  risen  to  their  positions 
by  intellectual  abilities  and  by  administrative  capacity.  The  abbots 
and  other  superiors  of  religious  orders  had  been  chosen  by  their  monks 
as  a  rule  because,  having  shown  that  they  knew  how  to  rule  them- 
selves, they  were  deemed  most  fitting  to  rule  over  others. 

Even  in  our  day,  when  the  Church  occupies  nothing  like  the  posi- 
tion in  the  hearts  of  the  masses  that  she  held  in  the  ages  of  faith, 
our  Catholic  Cardinals,  Archbishops  and  Bishops,  both  here  and  in 
England,  are  chosen  as  members  of  arbitration  boards  to  settle  strikes 
and  other  social  difficulties,  because  it  is  felt  that  the  working  class  has 
full  confidence  in  them,  and  that  they  are  thoroughly  representative  of 
the  spirit  of  democracy.  In  England  Cardinal  Manning  served  more 
than  once  in  critical  social  conditions.  In  this  country  we  have  had  a 
series  of  such  examples.  From  these  we  can  better  understand  what 
the  Lords  spiritual  represented  in  the  English  House  of  Lords. 
There  were  abuses,  though  they  were  not  nearly  so  frequent  as  were 
thought,  by  which  unworthy  men  sometimes  reached  such  positions, 
for  men  abuse  even  the  best  things,  but  in  general  these  clerical  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Lords  were  the  chosen  intellectual  and  moral 
products  of  the  kingdom.  Since  they  were  without  families  they  had 


APPENDIX.  435 

less  temptation  to  serve  personal  interests  and,  besides,  they  had 
received  a  life-long  training  in  unselfishness,  and  the  best  might  be  ex- 
pected of  them.  For  an  ideal  second  chamber  I  know  none  that  can 
compare  with  this  old  English  House  of  Lords  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
How  much  it  was  responsible  for  the  foundation  of  the  liberties  of 
which  the  English-speaking  people  are  deservedly  so  proud,  and  which 
have  been  treated  in  some  detail  in  the  chapter  on  Origins  in  Law, 
would  be  interesting  to  trace. 


III.    THE  PARISH,  AND  TRAINING  IN  CITIZENSHIP. 

Mr.  Toulmin  Smith,  in  his  book  on  "The  Parish,"  and  Dom 
Gasquet,  in  his  volume  on  "The  Parish  Before  the  Reformation," 
have  shown  what  a  magnificent  institution  for  popular  self-govern- 
ment was  the  English  medieval  parish,  and  how  much  this  contributed 
to  the  solution  pf  important  social  problems  and  to  the  creation  of  a 
true  democratic  spirit.  Mr.  Toulmin  Smith  calls  particular  attention  to 
the  fact  that  when  local  self-government  gets  out  of  the  hands  of 
the  people  of  a  neighborhood  personal  civic  energy  goes  to  sleep. 
The  feeling  of  mutual  responsibility  of  the  men  of  the  place  is  lost, 
to  the  great  detriment  of  their  larger  citizenship  in  municipality  and 
nation.  In  the  parish,  however,  forming  a  separate  community,  of 
which  the  members  had  rights  and  duties,  the  primal  solid  basis 
for  government,  the  parish  authorities  took  charge  of  the  highways, 
the  roads,  the  paths,  the  health,  the  police,  the  constabulary,  and  the 
fires  of  their  neighborhood.  They  kept,  besides,  a  registry  of  births 
and  deaths  and  marriages.  When  these  essentially  local  concerns  are 
controlled  in  large  bodies  the  liability  to  abuse  at  once  becomes  easy 
and  political  corruption  sets  in.  He  mentions,  besides  many  parochial 
institutions,  a  parochial  friendly  society  for  loans  on  security,  parish 
gilds  for  insurance,  and  many  other  phases  of  that  thoroughly  or- 
ganized mutual  aid  so  characteristic  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

These  parishes  became  completely  organized,  so  as  to  be  thoroughly 
democratic  and  representative  of  all  the  possibilities  of  local  self- 
government  under  King  Edward  at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  and 
the  beginning  of  the  Fourteenth  Century.  Rev.  Augustus  Jessopp,  in 
"After  the  Great  Pillage,"  tells  the  story  of  how  the  parishes  were 
broken  up  as  a  consequence  of  the  confiscation  of  their  endowment 
during  the  so-called  reformation.  The  quotation  from  him  may  be 
found  in  Appendix  III.  in  the  section  on  "  How  it  all  stopped." 

Toulmin  Smith  is  not  so  emphatic,  but  he  is  scarcely  less  explicit 
than  Jessopp.  "  The  attempts  of  ecclesiastical  authority  to  encroach  on 
the  civil  authorities  of  the  parish  have  been  more  successful  since  the 
reformation."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  at  that  time  all  government  became 
centralized,  and  complete  contradiction  though  it  may  seem  to  be  of 
what  is  sometimes  declared  the  place  of  the  reformation  in  the  history 


436  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

of  human  liberty,  the  genuine  democratic  institutions  of  England  were 
to  a  great  extent  impaired  by  the  reform,  and  an  autocracy,  which  later 
developed  into  an  autocratic  aristocracy,  largely  took  its  place.  Out  of 
that  England  has  gradually  lifted  itself  during  the  Nineteenth  Century. 
Even  now,  however,  as  pointed  out  in  the  preceding  chapter  that 
might  have  been,  the  House  of  Lords  is  not  at  all  what  it  was  in  the 
Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Centuries  when  the  majority  of  its  members 
were  Lords  spiritual,  men  who  had  come  up  from  the  masses  as  a 
rule. 

IV.    THE  CHANCE  TO  RISE. 

We  are  very  prone  to  think  that  even  though  there  may  have  been 
excellent  opportunities  for  the  higher  education  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century  and,  in  many  ways,  an  ideal  education  of  the  masses,  still 
there  was  one  great  social  drawback  in  those  times,  the  lack  of 
opportunity  for  men  of  humble  birth  to  rise  to  higher  stations. 
Nothing,  however,  is  less  true.  There  probably  never  was  a  time 
when  even  members  of  the  poorest  families  might  rise  more  readily 
or  rapidly  to  the  highest  positions  in  the  land.  The  sons  of  village 
merchants  and  village  artisans,  nay,  the  sons  and  grandsons  of  farmers 
bound  to  the  soil,  could  by  educational  success  become  clergymen  in 
various  ranks,  and  by  attaining  a  bishopric  or  the  position  of  abbot 
or  prior  of  a  monastery,  reach  a  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords.  Most  of 
the  Lord  High  Chancellors  of  England  during  the  Middle  Ages — and 
some  of  them  are  famous  for  their  genius  as  canon  and  civil  lawyers, 
for  their  diplomatic  abilities  and  their  breadth  of  view  and  capacity 
as  administrators — were  the  sons  of  humble  parents. 

Take  the  single  example  of  Stratford,  the  details  of  whose  in- 
habitants' lives,  because  of  the  greatness  of  one  of  them,  have  at- 
tracted more  attention  than  those  of  any  other  town  of  corresponding 
size  in  England.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Fourteenth  Century  it  is 
only  what  we  would  call  a  village,  and  it  probably  did  not  have  3,000 
inhabitants,  if,  indeed,  the  number  was  not  less  than  2,000.  In  his  book, 
"  Shakespeare  the  Boy,"  Mr.  Rolfe  calls  attention  to  certain  conditions 
that  interest  us  in  the  old  village.  He  tells  us  of  what  happened  as  a 
result  of  the  development  of  liberty  in  the  Thirteenth  Century: 

"Villeinage  gradually  disappeared  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VII.  (13- 
27-I337).  and  those  who  had  been  subject  to  it  became  free  tenants, 
paying  definite  rents  for  house  and  land.  Three  natives  of  the  town, 
who,  after  the  fashion  of  the  time,  took  their  surnames  from  the 
place  of  their  birth,  rose  to  high  positions  in  the  Church,  one  becom- 
ing Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  the  others  respectively  Bishops  of 
London  and  Chichester.  John  of  Stratford  and  Robert  of  Stratford 
were  brothers,  and  Ralph  of  Stratford  was  their  nephew.  John  and 
Robert  were  both  for  a  time  Chancellors  of  England,  and  there  is  no 
other  instance  of  two  brothers  attaining  that  high  office  in  succession." 


APPENDIX.  437 

To  many  people  the  fact  that  the  avenue  to  rise  was  through  the 

Clergy  more  than  m  any  other  way  will  be  disappointing.     One  ad- 

vantage   however,  that  the  old  people  would  insist  that  they  had  from 

heir  system  was  that  these  men,  having  no  direct  descendants    we™ 

less  hkely  to  pursue  selfish  aims  and  more  likely  to  try  to  secure  the 

lent    of    the    Community   than    are   those    who,    in    our   time,    rise 

through  the  legal  profession.    The  Lord  High  Chancellors  of  recent 

time  have  all  been  lawyers.    Would  not  most  of  the  world  confess 

that  the  advantage  was  with  the  medieval  peoples  ? 

President  Woodrow  Wilson  of  Princeton  realized  sympathetically 
this  great  element  of  saving  democracy  in  the  Middle  Ages,  and  has 
paid  worthy  tribute  to  it.  He  said:  «  The  only  reason  why  government 
did  not  suffer  dry  rot  in  the  Middle  Ages  under  the  aristocratic  systems 
which  then  prevailed  was  that  the  men  who  were  efficient  instruments 
of  government  were  drawn  from  the  church— from  that  great  church 
that  body  which  we  now  distinguish  from  other  church  bodies  as  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  The  Roman  Catholic  Church  then,  as  now, 
was  a  great  democracy.  There  was  no  peasant  so  humble  that  he  might 
not  become  a  priest,  and  no  priest  so  obscure  that  he  might  not  become 
Pope  of  Christendom,  and  every  chancellery  in  Europe  was  ruled  by 
those  learned,  trained  and  accomplished  men— the  priesthood  of  that 
great  and  then  dominant  church;  and  so,  what  kept  government  alive 
in  the  Middle  Ages  was  this  constant  rise  of  the  sap  from  the  bottom, 
from  the  rank  and  file  of  the  great  body  of  the  people  through  the 
open  channels  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priesthood." 


V.    INSURANCE. 

Insurance  is  usually  supposed  to  be  a  modern  idea  representing 
one  of  those  developments  of  the  capitalization  of  mutual  risks  of 
life,  property,  and  the  like  that  have  come  as  a  consequence  of  mod- 
ern progress.  The  insurance  system  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  organi- 
zation of  which  came  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  is  therefore  extremely 
interesting.  It  was  accomplished,  as  was  every  form  of  co-operation 
and  co-ordination  of  effort,  through  special  gilds  or  through  the  trade 
or  merchant  gilds.  Among  the  objects  of  the  gilds  enumerated  by 
Toulmin  Smith  is  insurance  against  loss  by  fire.  This  was  paid 
through  the  particular  gild  to  which  the  merchant  belonged,  or  in  the 
case  of  the  artisan  through  a  special  gild  which  he  joined  for  the 
purpose.  Provision  was  made,  however,  for  much  more  than  insur- 
ance by  fire.  Our  fire  insurance  companies  are  probably  several 
centuries  old,  so  also  are  our  insurance  arrangements  against  ship- 
wreck. Other  features  of  insurance,  however,  are  much  more  recent. 
Practically  all  of  these  were  in  active  existence  during  the  Middle 
Ages,  though  they  disappeared  with  the  so-called  reformation,  and  then 


438  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

did  not  come  into  existence  again  for  several  centuries  and,  indeed, 
not  until  our  own  time. 

The  old  gilds,  for  instance,  provided  insurance  against  loss  from 
flood,  a  feature  of  insurance  that  has  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  developed 
in  our  time,  against  loss  by  robbery  (our  burglary  insurance  is  quite 
recent),  against  loss  by  the  fall  of  a  house,  by  imprisonment,  and  then 
also  insurance  against  the  loss  of  cattle  and  farm  products.  All  the 
features  of  life  insurance  also  were  in  existence.  The  partial  dis- 
ability clauses  of  life  or  accident  insurance  policies  are  recent  de- 
velopments. In  the  old  days  there  is  insurance  against  the  loss  of 
sight,  against  the  loss  of  a  limb,  or  any  other  form  of  crippling.  The 
deaf  and  dumb  might  be  insured  so  as  to  secure  an  income  for  them, 
and  corresponding  relief  for  leprosy  might  be  obtained;  so  that,  if 
one  were  set  apart  from  the  community  by  the  law  requiring  segrega- 
tion of  lepers,  there  might  be  provision  for  food  and  lodging,  even 
though  productive  work  had  become  impossible.  In  a  word,  the  in- 
surance system  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  thoroughly  developed.  It  was 
not  capitalistic.  The  charges  were  only  enough  to  maintain  the  sys- 
tem, and  not  such  as  to  provide  large  percentage  returns  on  invested 
stock  and  on  bonds,  and  the  accumulation  of  huge  surpluses  that  al- 
most inevitably  lead  to  gross  abuses.  What  is  best  in  our  modern 
system  of  insurance  is  an  imitation  of  the  older  methods.  Certain 
of  the  trade  insurance  companies  which  assume  a  portion  of  the  risk 
on  mills,  factories  and  the  like,  are  typical  examples.  They  know 
the  conditions,  enforce  proper  precautions,  keep  an  absolute  check 
on  suspicious  losses,  accumulate  only  a  moderate  surplus  and  present 
very  few  opportunities  for  insurance  abuses.  The  same  thing  is  true 
for  the  fraternal  societies  that  conduct  life  insurance.  When  prop- 
erly managed  they  represent  the  lowest  possible  cost  and  the  best  ef- 
ficiency with  least  opportunities  for  fraud  and  without  any  tempta- 
tions to  interfere  with  legislation  and  any  allurements  for  legislators 
to  spend  their  time  making  strike  and  graft  bills  instead  of  doing 
legislative  work. 

VI.    OLD  AGE  PENSIONS. 

This  generation  has  occupied  itself  much  with  the  question  of  old 
age  pensions.  Probably  most  people  feel  that  this  is  the  first  time  in 
the  world's  history  that  such  arrangements  have  been  made.  The 
movement  is  supposed  to  represent  a  recent  development  of  humani- 
tarian purpose,  and  to  be  a  feature  of  recent  philanthropic  evolution. 
It  is  rather  interesting,  in  the  light  of  that  idea,  to  see  how  well  they 
accomplish  this  same  purpose  in  the  Thirteenth  and  Fourteenth  Cen- 
turies. In  our  time  it  has  been  a  government  affair,  with  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  abuse  that  there  are  in  a  huge  pension  system,  and  surely 
no  country  knows  it  better  than  we  do  here  in  America.  The  old 
countries,  Germany  and  France,  have  established  a  contributing  sys- 


APPENDIX.  439 


tern  of  pension.  This  was  the  model  of  their  system  of  caring  for 
the  old  and  the  disabled  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Toulmin  Smith  cites 
a  rule  of  one  of  the  gilds  which  gives  us  exactly  the  status  of  the 
old  age  disability  pension  question.  After  a  workman  had  been  seven 
years  a  member,  the  gild  assured  him  a  livelihood  in  case  of  disability 
from  any  cause. 

When  we  recall  that  employer  as  well  as  employee  as  a  rule  be- 
longed to  the  gild  and  this  was  a  real  mutual  organization  in  which 
there  was  a  sharing  of  the  various  risks  of  life,  we  see  how  emi- 
nently well  adapted  to  avoid  abuses  this  old  system  was.  Where  the 
pensioners  appeal  to  a  government  pension  system,  abuses  are  almost 
inevitable.  There  is  the  constant  temptation  to  exploit  the  system  on 
the  part  of  the  pensioners,  because  they  have  the  feeling  that  if  they 
do  not,  others  will.  Then  the  investigation  of  each  particular  case 
is  difficult,  and  favoritism  and  graft  of  various  kinds  inevitably  finds 
its  way  in.  Where  the  pension  is  paid  by  a  small  body  of  fellow  work- 
men, the  investigation  is  easy,  the  temptation  to  exploit  does  not 
readily  find  place,  and  while  abuses  are  to  some  extent  inevitable,  these 
are  small  in  amount,  and  not  likely  to  be  frequent.  Friends  and 
neighbors  know  conditions,  and  men  are  not  pauperized  by  the  sys- 
tem, and  if,  after  an  injury  that  seemed  at  first  so  disabling  as  to  be 
permanent,  the  pensioner  should  improve  enough  to  be  able  to  get 
back  to  work,  or,  at  least,  to  do  something  to  support  himself,  the 
system  is  elastic  enough  so  that  he  is  not  likely  to  be  tempted  to 
continue  to  live  on  others  rather  than  on  his  own  efforts. 


VII.    THE  WAYS  AND  MEANS  OF  CHARITY— ORGANIZED 

CHARITY. 

Most  of  us  would  be  apt  to  think  that  our  modern  methods  of 
obtaining  funds  for  charitable  purposes  represented  definite  develop- 
ments, and  that  at  least  special  features  of  our  collections  for  charity 
were  our  own  invention.  In  recent  years  the  value  of  being  able 
to  reach  a  great  many  people  even  for  small  amounts  has  been  par- 
ticularly recognized.  "  Tag  day  "  is  one  manifestation  of  that.  Every- 
one in  a  neighborhood  is  asked  to  contribute  a  small  amount  for  a 
particular  charitable  purpose,  and  the  whole  collection  usually  runs  up 
to  a  snug  sum.  Practices  very  similar  to  this  were  quite  common  in 
the  Thirteenth  Century.  As  in  our  time,  it  was  the  women  who  col- 
lected the  money.  A  rope,  for  instance,  was  stretched  across  a  market- 
place, where  traffic  was  busy,  and  everyone  who  passed  was  required 
to  pay  a  toll  for  charity.  Occasionally  the  rope  was  stretched  across 
a  bridge  and  the  tolls  were  collected  on  a  particular  day  each  year. 
Other  forms  of  charitable  accumulation  resembled  ours  in  many  re- 
spects. Entertainments  of  various  kinds  were  given  for  charity,  and 
special  collections  were  made  during  the  exhibition  of  mystery  plays 


440  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

partly  to  pay  the  expenses  of  the  representation,  and  the  surplus  to  go 
to  the  charities  of  the  particular  gild. 

Most  of  the  charity,  however,  was  organized.  Indeed,  it  is  the  or- 
ganization of  charity  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  that  represents 
the  best  feature  of  its  fraternalism.  The  needy  were  cared  for  by 
the  gilds  themselves.  There  were  practically  no  poorhouses,  and  if 
a  man  was  willing  to  work  and  had  already  shown  this  willingness, 
there  were  definite  bureaus  that  would  help  him  at  least  to  feed  his 
family  while  he  was  out  of  work.  This  system,  however,  was  flexible 
enough  to  provide  also  for  the  ne'er-do-wells,  the  tramps,  the  beg- 
gars, but  they  were  given  not  money,  but  tokens  which  enabled 
them  to  obtain  the  necessaries  of  life  without  being  able  to  abuse 
charity.  The  committees  of  the  gilds  consulted  in  various  ways  among 
themselves  and  with  the  church  wardens  so  as  to  be  sure  that,  while 
all  the  needy  were  receiving  help,  no  one  was  abusing  charity  by 
drawing  help  from  a  number  of  different  quarters.  Of  course,  they 
did  not  have  the  problem  of  large  city  life  that  we  have,  and  so  their 
comparatively  simple  organization  of  charity  sufficed  for  all  the  needs 
of  the  time,  and  at  the  same  time  anticipated  our  methods. 

VIII.    SCIENTIFIC  UNIVERSITIES. 

In  the  first  edition  of  this  book  I  called  attention  to  the  fact, 
that  science,  even  in  our  sense  of  physical  science,  was,  in  spite  of  im- 
pressions to  the  contrary,  a  favorite  subject  for  students  and  teachers 
in  the  early  universities.  What  might  have  been  insisted  on,  however, 
is  that  these  old  universities  were  scientific  universities  resembling  our 
own  so  closely  in  their  devotion  to  science  as  to  differ  from  them  only 
in  certain  unimportant  aspects.  Because  the  universities  for  three 
centuries  before  the  Nineteenth  had  been  occupied  mainly  with  classical 
studies,  we  are  prone  to  think  that  these  were  the  main  subjects  of  uni- 
versity teaching  for  all  the  centuries  before.  Nothing  could  well  be  less 
true.  The  undergraduate  studies  consisted  of  the  seven  liberal  arts 
so-called,  though  these  were  largely  studied  from  the  scientific  stand- 
point. The  quotation  from  Prof.  Huxley  (Appendix  III.,  Education) 
makes  this  very  clear.  What  we  would  now  call  the  graduate  studies 
consisted  of  metaphysics,  in  which  considerable  physics  were  studied, 
astronomy,  medicine,  above  all,  mathematics,  and  then  the  ethical 
sciences,  under  which  were  studied  what  we  now  call  ethics,  politics 
and  economics.  The  picture  of  these  medieval  universities  as  I  have 
given  them  in  my  lecture  on  Medieval  Scientific  Universities,  in  "  Edu- 
cation, How  Old  the  New,"  makes  this  very  clear.  The  interests  and 
studies  were  very  like  those  of  our  own  time,  only  the  names  for  them 
being  different.  Nature-study  was  a  favorite  subject,  and,  as  I  have 
pointed  out  in  "The  Popes  and  Science,"  Dante  must  be  considered 
as  a  great  nature  student,  for  he  was  able  to  draw  the  most  exquisite 
figures  from  details  of  knowledge  of  living  things  with  which  few 


APPENDIX.  441 

poets  are  familiar.  The  books  of  the  professors  of  the  Thirteenth 
Century  which  have  been  preserved,  those  of  Albertus  Magnus,  Roger 
Bacon,  Aquinas,  Duns  Scotus  and  others,  make  it  very  clear  that  sci- 
entific teaching  was  the  main  occupation  of  the  university  faculties, 
while  the  preservation  of  these  huge  tomes  by  the  diligent  copying  of 
disciples  shows  how  deeply  interested  were  their  pupils  in  the  science 
of  the  time. 

IX.    MEDICAL   TEACHING    AND    PROFESSIONAL 
STANDARDS. 

At  all  times  in  the  history  of  education,  the  standards  of  scientific 
education,  and  the  institutions  of  learning,  can  be  best  judged  from 
the  condition  of  the  medical  schools.  When  the  medical  sciences  are 
taken  seriously,  when  thorough  preparation  is  demanded  before  their 
study  may  be  taken  up,  when  four  or  five  years  of  attention  to  theoretic 
and  practical  medicine  are  required  for  graduation,  and  when  the  pro- 
fessors are  writing  textbooks  that  are  to  attract  attention  for  gen- 
erations afterwards,  then,  there  is  always  a  thoroughly  scientific 
temper  in  the  university  itself.  Medicine  is  likely  to  suffer,  first, 
whenever  there  is  neglect  of  science.  The  studies  of  the  German  his- 
torians, Puschmann,  Pagel,  Neuberger,  and  Sudhoff  in  recent  years, 
have  made  it  very  clear  that  the  medical  schools  of  the  universities  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  were  maintaining  high  standards.  The  re- 
publication  of  old  texts,  especially  in  France,  has  called  attention  to 
the  magnificent  publications  of  their  professors,  while  a  review  of 
their  laws  and  regulations  confirms  the  idea  of  the  good  work  that 
was  being  done.  Gurlt,  in  his  history  of  surgery,  "  Geschichte  der 
Chirurgie"  (Berlin,  1898),  has  reviewed  the  textbooks  of  Roger  and 
Roland  and  the  Four  Masters,  of  William  of  Salicet  and  Lanfranc 
and  of  many  others,  in  a  way  to  make  it  very  clear  that  these  men 
were  excellent  teachers. 

When  we  discover  that  three  years  of  preparatory  university  work 
was  required  before  the  study  of  medicine  could  be  begun,  and  four 
years  of  medical  studies  were  required,  with  a  subsequent  year  of 
practice  under  a  physician's  direction,  before  a  license  for  independent 
practice  could  be  issued,  then  the  scientific  character  of  the  medical 
schools  and  therefore  of  the  universities  to  which  they  were  attached 
is  placed  beyond  all  doubt.  These  are  the  terms  of  the  law  issued 
by  the  Emperor  Frederick  II.  for  the  Two  Sicilies.  That,  in  substance, 
it  applied  to  other  countries  we  learn  from  the  fact  that  the  charters  of 
medical  schools  granted  by  the  Popes  at  this  time  require  proper  uni- 
versity preliminary  studies,  and  four  or  five  years  at  medicine  be- 
fore the  degree  of  Doctor  could  be  given.  We  know  besides  that  in 
the  cities  only  those  who  were  graduates  of  properly  recognized  med- 
ical schools  were  allowed  to  practice  medicine,  so  that  there  was  every 
encouragement  for  the  maintenance  of  professional  standards.  Indeed, 


442  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

strange  as  it  may  seem  to  our  generation,  the  standards  of  the  Thir- 
teenth Century  in  medical  education  were  much  higher  than  our  own, 
and  their  medical  schools  were  doing  fine  work. 

X.    MAGNETISM. 

For  proper  understanding  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  scholars,  it 
is  especially  important  to  appreciate  their  thoroughly  scientific  temper 
of  mind,  their  powers  of  observation,  and  their  successful  attainments 
in  science.  I  know  no  more  compendious  way  of  reaching  the  knowl- 
edge of  these  qualities  in  the  medieval  mind,  than  a  study  of  the 
letter  of  Peregrinus,  which  we  would  in  our  time  call  a  monograph 
on  magnetism.  Brother  Potamian,  in  his  chapter  in  "Makers  of 
Electricity"  (Fordham  University  Press,  N.  Y.,  1909)  on  Peregrinus 
and  Columbus,  sums  up  the  very  interesting  contributions  of  this 
medieval  student  of  magnetism  to  the  subject.  The  list  of  chapters 
alone  in  Peregrinus'  monograph  (Epistola)  makes  it  very  clear  how 
deep  were  his  interests  and  how  thoroughly  practical  his  investigations. 


THE  DOUBLE   PIVOTED  NEEDLE  OF  PEREGRINUS. 

They  are:— "Part  I.,  Chapter  i,  purpose  of  this  work;  2,  qualifications 
of  the  experimenter;  3,  characteristics  of  a  good  lodestone;  4,  how  to 
distinguish  the  poles  of  a  lodestone;  5,  how  to  tell  which  pole  is  north 
and  which  is  south ;  6,  how  one  lodestone  attracts  another ;  7,  how  iron 
touched  by  a  lodestone  turns  toward  the  poles  of  the  world;  8,  how  a 
lodestone  attracts  iron ;  9,  why  the  north  pole  of  one  lodestone  attracts 
the  south  pole  of  another,  and  vice  versa;  10,  an  inquiry  into  the 
natural  virtue  of  the  lodestone. 

"  Part  II.,  Chapter  i,  construction  of  an  instrument  for  measur- 
ing the  azimuth  of  the  sun,  the  moon  or  any  star  then  in  the  horizon; 
2,  construction  of  a  better  instrument  for  the  same  purpose;  3,  the 
art  of  making  a  wheel  of  perpetual  motion." 

In  order  to  illustrate  what  Peregrinus  accomplished  it  has  seemed 
worth  while  to  reproduce  here  the  sketches  which  illustrate  his 
epistle.  We  have  the  double  pivoted  needle  and  the  first  pivoted  com- 
pass. 

In  the  light  of  certain  recent  events  a  passage  from  the  "  New 
Naval  History  or  Complete  Review  of  the  British  Marine  "  (London, 
1757)  is  of  special  interest.  It  illustrates  perhaps  the  new  confidence 
that  came  to  men  in  sailing  to  long  distances  as  the  result  of  the 


APPENDIX.  443 

realization  of  the  practical  value  of  the  magnetic  needle  during  the 
Thirteenth  Century. 

"In  the  year  1360  it  is  recorded  that  a  friar  of  Oxford  called 
Nicholas  de  Linna  (of  Lynn),  being  a  good  astronomer,  went  in  com- 
pany with  others  to  the  most  northern  island,  and  thence  traveled  alone, 


FIRST  PIVOTED  COMPASS    (PEREGRINUS,   1269). 

and  that  he  went  to  the  North  Pole,  by  means  of  his  skill  in  magic, 
or  the  black  art;  but  this  magic  or  black  art  may  probably  have  been 
nothing  more  than  a  knowledge  of  the  magnetic  needle  or  compass, 
found  out  about  sixty  years  before,  though  not  in  common  use  until 
many  years  after." 


XI.    BIOLOGICAL   THEORIES,    EVOLUTION, 
RECAPITULATION. 

Of  course  only  those  who  are  quite  unfamiliar  with  the  history 
of  philosophic  thought  are  apt  to  think  that  the  theory  of  evolution  is 
modern.  Serious  students  of  biology  are  familiar  with  the  long 
history  of  the  theory,  and  especially  its  anticipations  by  the  Greeks. 
Very  few  know,  however,  that  certain  phases  of  evolutionary  theory 
attracted  not  a  little  attention  from  the  scholastic  philosophers.  It 
would  not  be  difficult  to  find  expressions  in  Roger  Bacon  and  Albertus 
Magnus,  that  would  serve  to  show  that  they  thought  not  only  of  the 
possibility  of  some  very  intimate  relation  of  species  but  of  develop- 
mental connections.  The  great  teacher  of  the  time,  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas,  has  some  striking  expressions  in  the  matter,  which  deserve 
to  be  quoted,  because  he  is  the  most  important  representative  of  the 
philosophy  and  science  of  the  century  and  the  one  whose  works  most 
influenced  succeeding  generations.  In  the  lecture  on  Medieval  Sci- 
entific Universities,  published  in  "Education,  How  Old  the  New" 
(Fordham  University  Press,  N.  Y.,  1910),  I  called  particular  attention 
to  this  phase  of  St.  Thomas'  teaching.  Two  quotations  will  serve  to 
make  it  clear  here. 

Prof.  Osborne,  in  "  From  the  Greeks  to  Darwin,"  quotes  Aquinas' 
commentary  on  St.  Augustine's  opinion  with  regard  to  the  origin  of 
things  as  they  are.  Augustine  declared  that  the  Creator  had  simply 


444  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

brought  into  life  the  seeds  of  things,  and  given  these  the  power  to  de- 
velop.    Aquinas,  expounding  Augustine,  says  : 

"  As  to  production  of  plants,  Augustine  holds  a  different  view,  .  .  . 
for  some  say  that  on  the  third  day  plants  were  actually  produced, 
each  in  his  kind — a  view  favored  by  the  superficial  reading  of  Scrip- 
ture. But  Augustine  says  that  the  earth  is  then  said  to  have  brought 
forth  grass  and  trees  causaliter;  that  is,  it  then  received  power  to 
produce  them."  (Quoting  Genesis  ii:  4):  "For  in  those  first  days, 
.  .  .  God  made  creation  primarily  or  causaliter,  and  then  rested  from 
His  work." 

Like  expressions  might  be  quoted  from  him,  and  other  writers  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century  might  well  be  cited  in  confirmation  of  the  fact 
that  while  these  great  teachers  of  the  Middle  Ages  thoroughly  recog- 
nize the  necessity  for  creation  to  begin  with  and  the  placing  by  the 
Creator  of  some  power  in  living  things  that  enables  them  to  develop, 
they  were  by  no  means  bound  to  the  thought  that  all  living  species 
were  due  to  special  creations.  They  even  did  not  hesitate  to  teach  the 
possibility  of  the  lower  order  of  living  beings  at  least  coming  into 
existence  by  spontaneous  generation,  and  would  probably  have  found 
no  difficulty  in  accepting  a  theory  of  descent  with  the  limitations  that 
most  scientific  men  of  our  generation  are  prone  to  demand  for  it. 

Lest  it  should  be  thought  that  this  is  a  mere  accidental  agreement 
with  modern  thought,  due  much  more  to  a  certain  looseness  of  terms 
than  to  actual  similarity  of  view,  it  seems  well  to  point  out  how  close 
St.  Thomas  came  to  that  thought  in  modern  biology,  which  is  probably 
considered  to  be  one  of  our  distinct  modern  contributions  to  the 
theory  of  evolution,  though,  in  recent  years,  serious  doubts  have  been 
thrown  on  it.  It  is  expressed  by  the  formula  of  Herbert  Spencer, 
"  Ontogeny  recapitulates  phylogeny."  According  to  this,  the  com- 
pleted being  repeats  in  the  course  of  its  development  the  history  of 
the  race,  that  is  to  say,  the  varying  phases  of  foetal  development  from 
the  single  cell  in  which  it  originates  up  to  the  perfect  being  of  the 
special  type  as  it  is  born  into  the  world,  retrace  the  history  by  which 
from  the  single  cell  being  the  creature  in  question  has  gradually  de- 
veloped. 

It  is  very  curious  to  find  that  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  in  his  teach- 
ing with  regard  to  the  origin  and  development  of  the  human  being, 
says,  almost  exactly,  what  the  most  ardent  supporters  of  this  so-called 
fundamental  biogenetic  law  proclaimed  during  the  latter  half  of  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  thinking  they  were  expressing  an  absolutely  new 
thought.  He  says  that  "  the  higher  a  form  is  in  the  scale  of  being 
and  the  farther  it  is  removed  from  mere  material  form,  the  more  in- 
termediate forms  must  be  passed  through  before  the  finally  perfect 
form  is  reached.  Therefore,  in  the  generation  of  animal  and  man — 
these  having  the  most  perfect  forms — there  occur  many  intermediate 
forms  in  generations,  and  consequently  destruction,  because  the  gen- 


APPENDIX.  445 

eration  of  one  being  is  the  destruction  of  another."  St.  Thomas  draws 
the  ultimate  conclusions  from  this  doctrine  without  hesitation.  He 
proclaims  that  the  human  material  is  first  animated  by  a  vegetative 
soul  or  principle  of  life,  and  then  by  an  animal  soul,  and  only 
ultimately  when  the  matter  has  been  properly  prepared  for  it  by  a 
rational  soul.  He  said :  "  The  vegetative  soul,  therefore,  which  is  first 
in  embryo,  while  it  lives  the  life  of  a  plant,  is  destroyed,  and  there 
succeeds  a  more  perfect  soul,  which  is  at  once  nutrient  and  sentient, 
and  for  that  time  the  embryo  lives  the  life  of  an  animal :  upon  the  de- 
struction of  this  there  succeeds  the  rational  soul,  infused  from  with- 
out." 

XII.    THE  POPE  OF  THE  CENTURY. 

The  absence  of  a  chapter  on  the  Pope  of  the  Century  has  always 
seemed  a  lacuna  in  the  previous  editions  of  this  book.  Pope  Innocent 
III.,  whose  pontificate  began  just  before  the  century  opened,  and  oc- 
cupied the  first  fifteen  years  of  it,  well  deserves  a  place  beside  Francis 
the  Saint,  Thomas  the  Scholar,  Dante  the  Poet,  and  Louis  the 
Monarch  of  this  great  century.  More  than  any  other  single  in- 
dividual he  was  responsible  for  the  great  development  of  the  in- 
tellectual life  that  took  place,  but  at  the  same  time  his  wonderfully 
broad  influence  enabled  him  to  initiate  many  of  the  movements  that 
meant  most  for  human  uplift  and  for  the  alleviation  of  suffering  in 
this  period.  It  was  in  Councils  of  the  Church  summoned  by  him 
that  the  important  legislation  was  passed  requiring  the  development 
of  schools,  the  foundation  of  colleges  in  every  diocese  and  of  uni- 
versities in  important  metropolitan  sees.  What  he  accomplished  for 
hospitals  has  been  well  told  by  Virchow,  from  whom  I  quote  a 
magnanimous  tribute  in  the  chapter  on  the  Foundation  of  City  Hos- 
pitals. The  legislation  of  Innocent  III.  did  much  to  encourage,  and 
yet  to  regulate  properly  the  religious  orders  of  this  time  engaged  in 
charitable  work.  Besides  doing  so  much  for  charity,  he  was  a  stern 
upholder  of  morals.  As  more  than  one  king  of  the  time  realized 
while  Innocent  was  Pope,  there  could  be  no  trifling  with  marriage 
vows. 

On  the  other  hand,  while  Innocent  was  so  stern  as  to  the  en- 
forcement of  marriage  laws,  his  wonderfully  judicious  character  and 
his  care  for  the  weak  and  the  innocent  can  be  particularly  noted  in  his 
treatment  of  the  children  in  these  cases.  While  he  compelled  recal- 
citrant kings  to  take  back  the  wives  they  would  repudiate,  and  put 
away  other  women  who  had  won  their  affections,  he  did  not  hesitate 
to  make  due  provision  as  far  as  possible  for  the  illegitimate  children. 
Pirie  Gordon,  in  his  recent  life  of  Pope  Innocent  III.,  notes  that  he 
invariably  legitimated  the  offspring  of  these  illegal  unions  of  kings, 
and  even  declared  them  capable  of  succession.  He  would  not  visit 
the  guilt  of  the  parent  on  the  innocent  offspring. 


446  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Innocent  did  more  to  encourage  the  idea  of  international  arbitra- 
tion than  anyone  up  to  his  time.  During  his  period  more  than  once 
he  was  the  arbitrator  to  whom  rival  national  claims  that  might  have 
led  to  war  were  referred.  Probably  his  greatest  claim  on  our  admira- 
tion in  the  modern  time  is  his  attitude  toward  the  Jews.  In  this  he 
is  centuries  ahead  of  his  time  and,  indeed,  the  policy  that  he  laid 
down  is  far  ahead  of  what  is  accorded  to  them  by  many  of  the 
nations  even  at  the  present  time,  and  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
it  is  only  during  the  past  hundred  years  that  the  Jew  has  come  to 
have  any  real  privileges  comparable  to  those  accorded  to  other  men. 
At  a  time  when  the  Jew  had  no  real  rights  in  law,  Innocent  insisted 
on  according  them  all  the  rights  of  men.  His  famous  edict  in  this 
regard  is  well  known.  "  Let  no  Christian  by  violence  compel  them 
to  come  dissenting  or  unwilling  to  Baptism.  Further  let  no  Christian 
venture  maliciously  to  harm  their  persons  without  a  judgment  of  the 
civil  power,  to  carry  off  their  property  or  change  their  good  customs 
which  they  have  had  hitherto  in  that  district  which  they  inhabit." 
When,  in  addition  to  all  this,  it  is  recalled  that  he  was  a  distinguished 
scholar  and  graduate  of  the  University  of  Paris,  looked  up  to  as  one  of 
the  intellectual  geniuses  of  the  time,  the  author  of  a  treatise  "  On  the 
Contempt  of  the  World"  at  a  time  when  the  kings  of  the  earth  were 
obeying  him,  known  for  his  personal  piety  and  for  his  thorough  reg- 
ulation of  his  own  household,  something  of  the  greatness  of  the  man 
will  be  appreciated.  No  wonder  that  historians  who  have  taken  up 
the  special  study  of  his  career  have  always  been  won  over  to  deep 
personal  admiration  of  him,  and  though  many  of  them  began  prejudiced 
in  his  regard,  practically  all  of  them  were  converted  to  be  his  sincere 
admirers. 

XIII.    INTERNATIONAL  ARBITRATION. 

During  the  Peace  Conference  in  New  York  in  1908  I  was  on  the 
programme  with  Mr.  William  T.  Stead  of  London,  the  editor  of  the 
English  Review  of  Reviews,  who  was  very  much  interested  in  the 
volume  on  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  who  suggested  that  one 
chapter  in  the  book  should  have  been  devoted  to  the  consideration  of 
what  was  accomplished  for  peace  and  for  International  Arbitration 
during  this  century.  There  is  no  doubt  that  there  developed,  as  the 
result  of  many  Papal  decrees,  a  greater  tendency  than  has  existed 
ever  before  or  since,  to  refer  quarrels  between  nations  that  would 
ordinarily  end  in  war  to  decision  by  some  selected  umpire.  Usu- 
ally the  Pope,  as  the  head  of  the  Christian  Church,  to  which  all  the 
nations  of  the  civilized  world  belonged,  was  selected  as  the  arbitrator. 
This  international  arbitration,  strengthened  by  the  decrees  of  Pope 
Innocent  III.,  Pope  Honorius  III.  and  Pope  Alexander  III.,  de- 
veloped in  a  way  that  is  well  worth  wh:le  studying,  and  that  has  de- 
servedly been  the  subject  of  careful  investigation  since  the  present 


APPENDIX.  447 

peace  movement  began.  Certainly  the  outlook  for  the  securing  of 
peace  by  international  arbitration  was  better  at  this  time  than  it  has 
been  at  any  time  since.  What  a  striking  example,  for  instance,  is 
the  choice  of  King  Louis  of  France  as  the  umpire  in  the  dispute  be- 
tween the  Barons  and  the  King  of  England,  which  might  have  led  to 
war.  Louis'  position  with  regard  to  the  Empire  and  the  Papacy  was 
to  a  great  extent  that  of  a  pacificator,  and  his  influence  for  peace 
was  felt  everywhere  throughout  Europe.  The  spirit  of  the  century 
was  all  for  arbitration  and  the  adjudication  of  intranational  as  well  as 
international  difficulties  by  peaceful  means. 

XIV.    BIBLE  REVISION. 

Most  people  will  be  quite  sure  that  at  least  the  question  of  Bible 
revision  with  critical  study  of  text  and  comparative  investigation  of 
sources  was  reserved  for  our  time.  The  two  orders  of  friars 
founded  in  the  early  part  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  however,  de- 
voted themselves  to  the  task  of  supplying  to  the  people  a  thoroughly 
reliable  edition  of  the  Scriptures.  The  first  systematic  revision  was 
made  by  the  Dominicans  about  1236.  After  twenty  years  this  revi- 
sion was  set  aside  as  containing  too  many  errors,  and  another  Do- 
minican correction  replaced  it.  Then  came  that  great  scholar,  Hugh  of 
St.  Cher,  known  later  as  the  Cardinal  of  Santa  Sabina,  the  author  of 
the  first  great  Biblical  Concordance.  His  Bible  studies  did  much  to 
clarify  obscurities  in  the  text.  Sometime  about  1240  he  organized  a 
commission  of  friars  for  the  revision  of  what  was  known  as  the  Paris 
Exemplar,  the  Bible  text  that  was  most  in  favor  at  that  time.  The 
aim  of  Hugh  of  St.  Cher  was  to  establish  the  old  Vulgate  of  St.  Jerome, 
the  text  which  received  this  name  during  this  century,  but  with  such 
revision  as  would  make  this  version  correspond  as  nearly  as  possible 
to  the  Hebrew  and  the  Greek. 

This  activity  on  the  part  of  the  Dominicans  was  rivaled  by  the 
Franciscans.  We  might  not  expect  to  find  the  great  scientist,  Roger 
Bacon,  as  a  Biblical  scholar  and  reviser,  but  such  he  was,  working 
with  Willermus  de  Mara,  to  whom,  according  to  Father  Denifle,  late 
the  Librarian  of  the  Vatican  Library,  must  be  attributed  the  title  given 
him  by  Roger  Bacon  of  Sapientissimus  Vir.  The  Dominicans  under 
the  leadership  of  Hugh  of  St.  Cher  with  high  ideals  had  hoped  to 
achieve  a  perfect  primitive  text.  The  version  made  by  de  Mara, 
however,  with  the  approval  and  advice  of  Bacon,  was  only  meant  to 
bring  out  St.  Jerome's  text  as  perfectly  as  possible.  These  two  re- 
visions made  in  the  Thirteenth  Century  are  typical  of  all  the  ef- 
forts that  men  have  made  since  in  that  same  direction.  Contrary  to 
usual  present  day  impressions,  they  are  characterized  by  critical  schol- 
arship, and  probably  represent  as  great  a  contribution  to  Biblical  lore 
as  was  made  by  any  other  century. 


448  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


XV.    FICTION  OF  THE  CENTURY. 

Ordinarily  it  would  be  presumed  that  life  was  taken  entirely  too 
seriously  during  the  Thirteenth  Century  for  the  generation  to  pay 
much  attention  to  fiction.  In  a  certain  sense  this  is  true.  In  the 
sense,  however,  that  they  had  no  stories  worthy  of  the  great  litera- 
ture in  other  departments  it  would  be  quite  untrue.  There  is  a  naivete 
about  their  story  telling  that  rather  amuses  our  sophisticated  age,  yet 
all  the  elements  of  our  modern  fiction  are  to  be  found  in  the  stories 
that  were  popular  during  the  century,  and  arranged  with  a  dramatic 
effect  that  must  have  given  them  a  wide  appeal. 

The  most  important  contribution  to  the  fiction  of  the  century  is  to 
be  found  in  the  collection  known  as  the  Cento  Novelle  Antiche  or 
"  Hundred  Ancient  Tales,"  which  contains  the  earliest  prose  fiction  ex- 
tant in  Italian.  Many  of  these  come  from  a  period  anterior  to  Dante, 
and  it  is  probable  from  what  Manni,  the  learned  editor  of  the 
Novelliero,  says,  that  they  were  written  out  in  the  Thirteenth  Century 
and  collected  in  the  early  part  of  the  Fourteenth  Century.  They  did 
not  all  originate  in  Italy,  and,  indeed,  Manni  considers  that  most  of 
them  derived  their  origin  from  Provence.  They  represent  the  interest 
of  the  century  in  fiction  and  in  anecdotal  literature. 

As  for  the  longer  fiction,  the  pure  love  story  of  the  modern 
time,  we  have  one  typical  example  of  it  in  that  curious  relic  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  "  Aucassin  and  Nocolette."  The  manuscript  which  pre- 
served this  for  us  comes  from  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Perhaps,  as 
M.  Paris  suggests,  the  tale  itself  is  from  the  preceding  century.  At 
least  it  was  the  interest  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  in  it  that  saved 
it  for  us.  For  those  who  think  that  the  love  romance  in  any  of  its 
features  is  novel,  though  we  call  it  by  that  name,  or  that  there  has 
been  any  development  of  human  nature  which  enables  the  writer  of 
love  stories  to  appeal  to  other  and  deeper,  or  purer  and  loftier  feel- 
ings in  his  loved  ones  now  than  in  the  past,  all  that  is  needed,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  is  a  casual  reading  of  this  pretty  old  song-story. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  feature  of  this  oldest  specimen  of 
modern  fiction  is  the  number  of  precious  bits  of  psychologic  analysis 
or,  at  least,  what  is  called  that  in  the  recent  time,  which  occur  in 
the  course  of  it.  For  instance,  when  Aucassin  is  grieving  because  he 
cannot  find  Nicolette  he  wanders  through  the  forest  on  horseback,  and 
is  torn  by  trees  and  brambles,  but  "he  feels  it  not  at  all."  On  the 
other  hand,  when  he  finds  Nicolette,  though  he  is  suffering  from  a 
dislocated  shoulder,  he  no  longer  feels  any  pain  in  it,  because  of  his 
joy  at  the  meeting,  and  Nicolette  (first  aid  to  the  injured)  is  able  to 
replace  the  dislocated  part  without  difficulty  (the  trained  nurse  in  fic- 
tion) because  he  is  so  happy  as  not  to  notice  the  pain  (psychotherapy). 
The  herdsman  whom  he  meets  wonders  that  Aucassin,  with  plenty  of 
money  and  victuals,  should  grieve  so  much  over  the  loss  of  Nicolette, 


APPENDIX.  449 

while  he  has  so  much  more  cause  to  grieve  over  the  loss  of  an  ox, 
which  means  starvation  to  him.  Toward  the  end  of  the  story  we 
have  the  scene  in  which  Nicolette,  stolen  from  home  when  very 
young,  and  utterly  unable  to  remember  anything  about  her  childhood, 
has  brought  back  to  her  memory  by  the  view  of  the  city  of  Carthage 
forgotten  events  of  her  childhood  (subconscious  memory).  These  rep- 
resent naively  enough,  it  is  true,  the  study  of  the  mind  under  vary- 
ing conditions  that  has  in  recent  years  been  given  the  rather  ambitious 
name  of  psychology  in  fiction. 

XVI.    GREAT  ORATORS. 

Without  a  chapter  on  the  great  orators  of  the  period  an  ac- 
count of  the  Thirteenth  Century  is  quite  incomplete.  Great  as  were 
the  other  forms  of  literature,  epic,  lyric  and  religious  poetry  and  the 
prose  writing,  it  is  probable  that  the  oratory  of  the  time  surpassed 
them  all.  When  we  recall  that  the  Cid,  the  Arthur  Legends,  the 
Nibelungen,  the  Meistersingers,  and  the  Minnesingers,  Reynard  the 
Fox,  the  Romance  of  the  Rose,  the  Troubadours,  and  even  Dante 
are  included  in  the  other  term  of  the  comparison  thus  made,  it  may 
seem  extravagant,  but  what  we  know  of  the  effect  of  the  orators  of  the 
time  fully  justifies  it.  Just  before  the  Thirteenth  Century,  great  re- 
ligious orators  swayed  the  hearts  and  minds  of  people,  to  the  organi- 
zation of  the  Crusades.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century 
the  mendicant  orders  were  organized,  and  their  important  duties  were 
preaching  and  teaching.  The  Dominicans  were  of  course  the  Order  of 
Preachers,  and  we  have  traditions  of  their  sway  over  the  minds  of 
the  people  of  the  time  which  make  it  very  clear  that  their  power  was 
equal  to  that  exerted  in  any  other  department  of  human  expression. 
There  are  traditions  particularly  of  the  oratory  of  the  Dominicans 
among  the  German  races,  which  serve  to  show  how  even  a  phlegmatic 
people  can  be  stirred  to  the  very  depths  of  their  being  by  the  eloquent 
spoken  word.  In  France  the  traditions  are  almost  as  explicit  in  this 
matter,  and  there  are  remains  of  religious  orations  that  fully  con- 
firm the  reputation  of  the  orators  of  the  time. 

Rhetoric  and  oratory  was  studied  very  assiduously.  Cicero  was 
the  favorite  reading  of  the  great  preachers  of  the  time,  and  we  find 
the  court  preachers  of  St.  Louis,  fitienne  de  Bourbon,  Elinand,  Guil- 
laume  de  Perrault  and  others  appealing  to  his  precepts  as  the  in- 
fallible guide  to  oratory.  Quintilian  was  not  neglected,  however,  and 
Symmachus  and  Sidonius  Apollinaris  were  also  faithfully  studied. 
If  we  turn  to  the  speeches  that  are  incorporated  in  the  epics,  as,  for 
instance,  the  Cid,  or  in  some  of  the  historians,  as  Villehardouin,  we 
have  definite  evidence  of  the  thorough  command  of  the  writers  of 
the  time  over  the  forms  of  oratory.  M.  Paullin  Paris,  the  authority 
in  our  time  on  the  literature  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  quotes  a 
passage  from  Villehardouin  in  which  Canon  de  Bethune  speaks  in  the 


450  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

name  of  the  French  chiefs  of  the  Fourth  Crusade  to  the  Emperors 
Isaac  and  Alexis  Comnenus.  M.  Paris  does  not  hesitate  to  declare 
that  the  passage  is  equal  to  many  of  the  same  kind  that  have  been 
much  admired  in  the  classic  authors.  It  has  the  force,  the  finish 
and  the  compression  of  Thucydides. 

XVII.    GREAT  BEGINNINGS  IN   ENGLISH  LITERATURE. 

Only  the  fact  that  this  work  was  getting  beyond  the  number  of 
printed  pages  determined  for  it  in  the  first  edition  prevented  the  in- 
sertion of  a  chapter  especially  devoted  to  the  great  beginnings  of 
English  literature  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  most  important 
contributions  to  Early  English  were  made  at  this  period.  The  Ormu- 
lum  and  Layamon's  Brut,  both  written  probably  during  the  first 
decade  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  have  become  familiar  to  all  stu- 
dents of  Old  English.  Mr.  Gollancz  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  "The 
Ormulum  is  perhaps  the  most  valuable  document  we  possess  for  the 
history  of  English  sound.  Orm  was  a  purist  in  o  thography  as  well 
as  in  vocabulary,  and  may  fittingly  be  described  as  the  first  of  English 
phoneticians." 


MANUSCRIPT  OF  ORMULUM    (THIRTEENTH   CENTURY) 

Of  Layamon,  Garnett  said  in  his  "English  Literature"  (Garnett 
and  Gosse)  :  "  It  would  have  sufficed  for  the  fame  of  Layamon  had  he 
been  no  more  than  the  first  minstrel  to  celebrate  Arthur  in  English  song, 
but  his  own  pretensions  as  a  poet  are  by  no  means  inconsiderate.  He 
is  everywhere  vigorous  and  graphic,  and  improved  upon  his  prede- 
cessor, Wace,  alike  by  his  additions  and  expansions,  and  by  his  more 
spiritual  handling  of  the  subjects  common  to  both."  Even  more  im- 
portant in  the  history  of  language  than  these  is  The  Ancren  Riwle 
(The  Anchorites'  Rule).  This  was  probably  written  by  Richard 
Poore,  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  for  three  Cistercian  nuns.  Its  place  in 
English  literature  may  be  judged  from  a  quotation  or  two  with  re- 
gard to  it.  Mr.  Kington-Oliphant  says :  "  The  Ancren  Riwle  is  the  fore- 
runner of  a  wondrous  change  in  our  speech.  More  than  anything  else 
written  outside  the  Danelagh,  that  piece  has  influenced  our  standard 


APPENDIX.  451 

English."  Garnett  says :  "  The  Ancren  Riwle  is  a  work  of  great  literary 
merit  and,  in  spite  of  its  linguistic  innovations,  most  of  which  have 
established  themselves,  well  deserves  to  be  described  as  'one  of  the 
most  perfect  models  of  simple  eloquent  prose  in  our  language.' " 

The  religious  poetry  of  the  time  is  not  behind  the  great  prose  of 
The  Ancren  Riwle,  and  one  of  them,  the  Luve  Ron  (Love  Song)  of 
Thomas  de  Hales,  is  very  akin  to  the  spirit  of  that  work,  and  has  been 
well  described  as  "  a  contemplative  lyric  of  the  simplest,  noblest  mold." 
Garnett  says:  "The  reflections  are  such  as  are  common  to  all  who 
have  in  all  ages  pleaded  for  the  higher  life  under  whatsoever  form, 
and  deplored  the  frailty  and  transitoriness  of  man's  earthly  estate. 
Two  stanzas  on  the  latter  theme  as  expressed  in  a  modernized  version 
might  almost  pass  for  Villon's : — 

"  Paris  and  Helen,  where  are  they,  "  It  is  as  if  they  ne'er  were  here, 

Fairest    in    beauty,    bright    to  Their    wondrous    woes    have 

view?  been  a'  told, 

Amadas,  Tristrem,  Ideine,  yea  That  it  is  sorrow  but  to  hear : 

Isold,  that  lived  with  love  so  How     anguish     killed     them 

true?  sevenfold, 

And  Caesar,  rich  in  power  and  And  how  with   dole  their  lives 

sway,  were   drear; 

Hector  the  strong,  with  might  Now  is  their  heat  all  turned  to 

to  do?  cold. 

All   glided    from   earth's    realm  Thus  this  world  gives  false  hope, 

away,  false  fear; 

Like  shaft  that  from  the  bow-  A  fool,  who  in  her  strength  is 

string  flew.  bold." 

XVIII.    GREAT  ORIGINS  IN  MUSIC. 

In  the  chapter  on  the  Great  Latin  Hymns  a  few  words  were 
said  about  one  phase  of  the  important  musical  development  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  that  of  plain  chant.  In  that  simple  mode  the 
musicians  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  succeeded  in  reaching  a  climax 
of  expression  of  human  feeling  in  such  chants  as  the  Exultet  and  the 
Lamentation  that  has  never  been  surpassed.  Something  was  also  said 
about  the  origin  of  part  music,  but  so  little  that  it  might  easily  be 
thought  that  in  this  the  century  lagged  far  behind  its  achievements  in 
other  departments.  M.  Pierre  Aubry  has  recently  published  (1909) 
Cent  Motets  du  XIHe  Siecle  in  three  volumes.  His  first  volume  con- 
tains a  photographic  reproduction  of  the  manuscript  of  Bamberg  from 
which  the  hundred  musical  modes  are  secured,  the  second  a  transcrip- 
tion in  modern  musical  notation  of  the  old  music,  and  the  third 
volume  studies  and  commentaries  on  the  music  and  the  times.  If 
anything  were  needed  to  show  how  utterly  ignorant  we  have  been  of 
the  interests  and  artistic  achievements  of  the  Middle  Ages,  it  is  this 
book  of  M.  Aubry. 

Victor  Hugo  said  that  music  dates  from  the  Sixteenth  Century, 
and  it  has  been  quite  the  custom,  even  for  people  who  thought  they 


453  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

knew  something  about  music,  to  declare  that  we  had  no  remains  of 
any  music  before  the  Sixteenth  Century  worth  while  talking  about. 
Ancient  music  is  probably  lost  to  us  forever,  but  M.  Aubry  has  shown 
conclusively  that  we  have  abundant  remains  to  show  us  that  the 
musicians  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  devoted  themselves  to  their  art 
with  as  great  success  as  their  rivals  in  the  other  Gothic  arts  and,  in- 
deed, they  thought  that  they  had  nearly  exhausted  its  possibilities  and 
tried  to  make  a  science  of  it.  By  their  supposedly  scientific  rules  they 
succeeded  in  binding  music  so  firmly  as  to  bring  about  its  obscuration 
in  succeeding  centuries.  This  is,  however,  the  old  story  of  what  has 
happened  in  every  art  whenever  genius  succeeds  in  finding  a  great 
mode  of  expression.  A  formula  is  evolved  which  often  binds  ex- 
pression so  rigorously  as  to  prevent  natural  development. 

XIX.    A  CHAPTER  ON  MANNERS. 

Whatever  the  people  of  the  Middle  Ages  may  have  been  in  morals, 
their  manners  are  supposed  to  have  been  about  as  lacking  in  refine- 
ment as  possible.  As  for  nearly  everything  else,  however,  this  im- 
pression is  utterly  false,  and  is  due  to  the  assumption  that  because 
we  are  better-mannered  than  the  generations  of  a  century  or  two  ago, 
therefore  we  must  be  almost  infinitely  in  advance,  in  the  same  re- 
spect, of  the  people  of  seven  centuries  ago.  There  are  ups  and  downs 
in  manners,  however,  as  there  are  in  education,  and  the  beginnings  of 
the  formal  setting  forth  of  modern  manners  are,  like  everything  else 
modern,  to  be  found  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  About  the  year 
1215  Thomasin  Zerklaere  wrote  in  German  a  rather  lengthy  treatise, 
Der  Wdlsche  Cast,  on  manners.  It  contains  most  of  the  details  of 
polite  conduct  that  have  been  accepted  in  later  times.  Not  long  after- 
wards, John  Garland,  an  Oxford  man  who  had  lived  in  France  for 
many  years,  wrote  a  book  on  manners  for  English  young  men.  He 
meant  this  to  be  a  supplement  to  Dionysius  Cato's  treatise,  written 
probably  in  the  Fourth  Century  in  Latin,  which  was  concerned  more 
with  morals  than  manners  and  had  been  very  popular  during  the 
Middle  Ages.  Garland's  book  was  the  first  of  a  series  of  such 
treatises  on  manners  which  appeared  in  England  at  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Many  of  them  have  been  recently  republished,  and  are 
a  revelation  of  the  development  of  manners  among  our  English  fore- 
fathers. The  book  is  usually  alluded  to  in  literature  as  Liber  Faceti, 
or  as  Facet;  the  full  title  was,  "The  Book  of  the  Polite  Man,  Teach- 
ing Manners  for  Men,  Especially  for  Boys,  as  a  Supplement  to  those 
which  were  Omitted  by  the  Most  Moral  Cato."  The  "  Romance  of 
the  Rose "  has,  of  course,  many  references  to  manners  which  show 
us  how  courtesy  was  cultivated  in  France.  In  Italy,  Dante's  teacher, 
Bruneto  Latini,  published  his  "  Tesoretto,"  which  treats  of  manners, 
and  which  was  soon  followed  by  a  number  of  similar  treatises  in 


APPENDIX. 


453 


Italian.  In  a  word,  we  must  look  to  the  Thirteenth  Century  for  the 
origin,  or  at  least  the  definite  acceptance,  of  most  of  those  conven- 
tions which  make  for  kindly  courtesy  among  men,  and  have  made 
possible  human  society  and  friendly  intercourse  in  our  modern  sense 
of  those  words. 

We  are  prone  to  think  that  refinement  in  table  manners  is  a  mat- 
ter of  distinctly  modern  times.  In  "  The  Babees'  Book,"  which  is 
one  of  the  oldest  books  of  English  manners,  the  date  of  which  in  its 
present  form  is  about  the  middle  of  the  Fourteenth  Century,  many 
of  our  rules  of  politeness  at  table  are  anticipated.  This  book  is  usu- 
ally looked  upon  as  a  compilation  from  preceding  times,  and  the 
original  of  it  is  supposed  to  be  from  the  preceding  century.  A  few 
quotations  from  it  will  show  how  closely  it  resembles  our  own  in- 
structions to  children: 


"  Thou  shalt  not  laugh  nor  speak 

nothing 
While  thy  mouth  be  full  of  meat 

or  drink; 
Nor    sup    thou    not    with   great 

sounding 

Neither  pottage  nor  other  thing. 
At  meat  cleanse  not  thy  teeth, 

nor  pick 
With  knife  or  straw  or  wand  or 

stick. 
While     thou    boldest    meat    in 

mouth,  beware 
To  drink;  that  is  an  unhonest 

chare ; 

And  also  physic  forbids  it  quite. 
Also  eschew,  without  strife, 
To  foul  the  board  cloth  with  thy 

knife. 

The  directions,  "how  to  behave 
in  one  of  these  old  books,  are  very 

"  If  a  man  demand  a  question  of 

thee, 
In  thine  answer  making  be  not 

too  hasty ; 
Weigh  well  his  words,  the  case 

understand 
Ere    an    answer   to    make   thou 

take  in  hand; 
Else  may  he  judge  in  thee  little 

wit, 
To  answer  to  a  thing  and  not 

hear  it. 
Suffer  his  tale  whole  out  to  be 

told, 
Then  speak  thou  mayst,  and  not 

be  controlled ; 


Nor  blow  not  on  thy  drink  or 

meat, 
Neither    for    cold,    neither    for 

heat. 
Nor  bear  with   meat  thy  knife 

to  mouth, 
Whether  thou  be  set  by  strong 

or  couth. 

Lean  not  on  elbow  at  thy  meat, 
Neither  for  cold  nor  for  heat. 
Dip    not   thy   thumb   thy    drink 

into; 
Thou    art   uncourteous   if   thou 

it  do. 

In  salt-cellar  if  thou  put 
Or  fish  or  flesh  that  men  see  it, 
That  is  a  vice,  as  men  me  tells ; 
And  great  wonder  it  would  be 

else." 

thyself  in  talking  with  any  man," 
minute  and  specific: — 

In  audible  voice  thy  words  do 
thou  utter, 

Not  high  nor  low,  but  using  a 
measure. 

Thy  words  see  that  thou  pro- 
nounce plaine, 

And  that  they  spoken  be  not  in 
vain; 

In  uttering  whereon  keep  thou 
an  order, 

Thy  matter  thereby  thou  shalt 
much  forder 

Which  order  if  thou  do  not  ob- 
serve, 

From  the  purpose  needs  must 
thou  swerve." 


454  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


XX.    TEXTILE  WORK  OF  THE  CENTURY. 

A  special  chapter  might  easily  have  been  written  on  the  mak- 
ing of  fine  cloths  of  various  kinds,  most  of  which  reached  their  high- 
est perfection  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Velvet,  for  instance,  is 
mentioned  for  the  first  time  in  England  in  1295,  but  existed  earlier 
on  the  continent,  and  cut  velvets  with  elaborate  patterns  were  made 
in  Genoa  exactly  as  we  know  finished  velvet  now.  Baudekin  or 
Baldichin,  a  very  costly  textile  of  gold  and  silk  largely  used  in  altar 
coverings  and  hangings,  came  to  very  high  perfection  in  this  cen- 
tury also.  The  canopy  for  the  Blessed  Sacrament  is,  because  of  its 
manufacture  from  this  cloth,  still  called  in  Italy  a  baldichino.  Chaucer 
in  the  next  century  tells  how  the  streets  in  royal  processions  were 
"hanged  with  cloth  of  gold  and  not  with  serge."  Satin  also  was 
first  manufactured  very  probably  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  It  is 
first  mentioned  in  England  about  the  middle  of  the  Fourteenth  Cen- 
tury, when  Bishop  Grandison  made  a  gift  of  choice  satins  to  Exeter 
Cathedral.  The  word  satin,  however,  is  derived  from  the  silks  of 
the  Mediterranean,  called  by  the  Italians  seta  and  by  the  Spanish  seda, 
and  the  art  of  making  it  was  brought  to  perfection  during  the  pre- 
ceding century. 

The  art  of  making  textiles  ornamented  with  elaborate  designs 
of  animal  forms  and  of  floral  ornaments  reached  its  highest  per- 
fection in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  In  one  of  the  Chronicles  we  learn 
that  in  1295  St.  Paul's  in  London  owned  a  hanging  "patterned  with 
wheels  and  two-headed  birds."  We  have  accounts  of  such  elaborate 
textile  ornamentation  as  peacocks,  lions,  griffins  and  the  like.  Almeria 
in  Andalusia  was  a  rich  city  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  noted  for  its 
manufactures  of  textiles.  A  historian  of  the  period  writes :  "  Chris- 
tians of  all  nations  came  to  its  port  to  buy  and  sell.  Then  they  trav- 
eled to  other  parts  of  the  interior  of  the  country,  where  they  loaded 
their  vessels  with  such  goods  as  they  wanted.  Costly  silken  robes  of 
the  brightest  colors  are  manufactured  in  Almeria."  Marco-Polo  says 
of  the  Persians  that,  when  he  passed  through  that  country  (end  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century),  "there  are  excellent  artificers  in  the  city  who 
make  wonderful  things  in  gold,  silk  and  embroidery.  The  women 
make  excellent  needlework  in  silk  with  all  sorts  of  creatures  very  ad- 
mirably wrought  therein."  He  also  reports  the  King  of  Tartary 
as  wearing  on  his  birthday  a  most  precious  garment  of  gold,  and 
tells  of  the  girdles  of  gold  and  silver,  with  pearls  and  ornaments  of 
great  price  on  them. 

Unfortunately  English  embroidery  fell  off  very  greatly  at  the 
time  of  the  Wars  of  the  Roses.  These  wars  constitute  the  main 
reason  why  nearly  every  form  of  intellectual  accomplishment  and 
artistic  achievement  went  into  decadence  during  the  Fourteenth  Cen- 
tury, from  which  they  were  only  just  emerging  when  the  so-called 


APPENDIX.  455 

reformation,  with  its  confiscation  of  monastic  property,  and  its  de- 
struction of  monastic  life,  came  to  ruin  schools  of  all  kinds,  and, 
above  all,  those  in  which  the  arts  and  crafts  had  been  taught  so  suc- 
cessfully. France  at  the  end  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  saw  a 
similar  rise  to  excellence  of  textile  and  embroidery  work.  In  1299 
there  is  an  allusion  to  one  Clement  le  Brodeur  who  furnished  a  mag- 
nificent copo  for  the  Count  of  Artois.  In  1316  a  beautifully  decorated 
set  of  hangings  was  made  for  the  Queen  by  Gautier  de  Poulleigny. 
There  are  other  references  to  work  done  in  the  early  part  of  the 
Fourteenth  Century,  which  serve  to  show  the  height  which  art  had 
reached  in  this  mode  during  the  Thirteenth  Century.  In  Ireland, 
while  the  finer  work  had  its  due  place,  the  making  of  woolens  was 
the  specialty,  and  the  dyeing  of  woolen  cloth  made  the  Irish  famous 
and  brought  many  travelers  from  the  continent  to  learn  the  secret. 

The  work  done  in  England  in  embroidery  attracted  the  atten- 
tion of  the  world.  English  needlework  became  a  proverb.  In  the 
body  of  the  book  I  mentioned  the  cope  of  Ascoli,  but  there  were  many 
such  beautiful  garments.  The  Syon  cope  is,  in  the  opinion  of  Miss 
Addison,  author  of  "  Arts  and  Crafts  in  the  Middle  Ages,"  the 
most  conspicuous  example  of  the  medieval  embroiderers'  art.  It 
was  made  by  nuns  about  the  middle  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  that 
is,  just  about  the  same  time  as  the  cope  of  Ascoli,  but  in  a  convent 
near  Coventry.  According  to  Miss  Addison  "  it  is  solid  stitchery  on  a 
canvas  ground,  '  wrought  about  with  divers  colors '  on  green.  The 
design  is  laid  out  in  a  series  of  interlacing  square  forms,  with  rounded 
and  barbed  sides  and  corners.  In  each  of  these  is  a  figure  or  a  Scrip- 
tural scene.  The  orphreys,  or  straight  borders,  which  go  down  on 
both  fronts  of  the  cope,  are  decorated  with  heraldic  charges.  Much 
of  the  embroidery  is  raised,  and  wrought  in  the  stitch  known  as 
Opus  Anglicanum.  The  effect  was  produced  by  pressing  a  heated 
metal  knob  into  the  work  at  such  points  as  were  to  be  raised.  The 
real  embroidery  was  executed  on  a  flat  surface,  and  then  bossed  up  by 
this  means  until  it  looked  like  bas-relief.  The  stitches  in  every  part 
run  in  zig-zags,  the  vestments,  and  even  the  nimbi  about  the  heads, 
are  all  executed  with  the  stitches  slanting  in  one  direction,  from 
the  center  of  the  cope  outward,  without  consideration  of  the  posi- 
tions of  the  figures.  Each  face  is  worked  in  circular  progression  out- 
ward from  the  center,  as  well.  The  interlaces  are  of  crimson,  and 
look  well  on  the  green  ground.  The  wheeled  cherubim  is  well  de- 
veloped in  the  design  of  this  famous  cope,  and  is  a  pleasing  decorative 
bit  of  archaic  ecclesiasticism.  In  the  central  design  of  the  Crucifixion, 
the  figure  of  the  Lord  is  rendered  in  silver  on  a  gold  ground." 

XXI.    GLASS-MAKING. 

A  chapter  might  well  have  been  devoted  to  Thirteenth  Century 
glass-making  quite  apart  from  the  stained  glass  of  the  cathedral  win- 


456  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

dows.  All  over  Europe  some  of  the  most  wonderful  specimens  of 
colored  glass  we  possess  were  made  in  the  Thirteenth  Century.  Re- 
cently Mr.  Frederick  Rolfe  has  looked  up  for  me  Venetian  glass,  of 
the  three  centuries,  the  Twelfth,  the  Thirteenth  and  the  Fourteenth. 
He  says  Twelfth  Century  glass  is  small  in  form,  simple  and  ig- 
norant in  model,  excessively  rich  and  brilliant  in  colors;  the  artist 
evidently  had  no  ideal,  but  the  Byzantine  of  jewels  and  emeralds. 

"Thirteenth  Century  glass  is  absolutely  different.  The  speci- 
mens are  pretty.  The  work  of  the  Beroviero  family  is  large  and 
splendid  in  form,  exquisite  and  sometimes  elaborate  in  model,  mostly 
crystal  glass  reticently  studded  with  tiny  colored  gem-like  knobs. 
There  are  also  fragments  of  two  windows  pieced  together,  and 
missing  parts  filled  with  the  best  which  modern  Murano  can  do. 
These  show  the  celebrated  Beroviero  Ruby  glass  (secret  lost)  of  mar- 
velous depth  and  brilliancy  in  comparison  with  which  the  modern  work 
is  merely  watery.  The  ancient  is  just  like  a  decanter  of  port-wine. 

"  Fourteenth  Century  returns  to  the  wriggling  ideal  and  exiguous 
form  of  the  Twelfth  Century,  and  fails  woefully  in  brilliance  of  color. 
It  is  small  and  dull  and  undistinguished.  One  may  find  out  what  war 
or  pest  afflicted  Murano  at  this  epoch  to  explain  the  singular  de- 
gradation." 

This  same  curious  degradation  took  place  in  the  manufacture  of 
most  art  objects  during  the  Fourteenth  Century.  One  would  feel  in 
Mr.  Rolfe's  words  like  looking  for  some  physical  cause  for  it.  The 
decadence  is  so  universal,  however,  that  it  seems  not  unlikely  that 
it  follows  some  little  known  human  law,  according  to  which,  after 
man  has  reached  a  certain  perfection  of  expression  in  an  art  or 
craft,  there  comes,  in  the  striving  after  originality  yet  variety,  an 
overbalancing  of  the  judgment,  a  vitiation  of  the  taste  in  the  very 
luxuriance  of  beauty  discovered  that  leads  to  decay.  It  is  the  very 
contradiction  of  the  supposed  progress  of  mankind  through  evolu- 
tion, but  it  is  illustrated  in  many  phases  of  human  history  and, 
above  all,  the  history  of  art,  letters,  education  and  the  arts  and  crafts. 

XXII.    INVENTIONS. 

Most  people  are  sure  to  think  that,  at  least  in  the  matter  of  in- 
ventions, ours  is  the  only  time  worth  considering.  The  people  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  however,  made  many  wonderful  inventions  and 
adaptations  of  mechanical  principles,  as  well  as  many  ingenious  ap- 
pliances. Their  faculty  of  invention  was  mainly  devoted  to  work  in 
other  departments  besides  that  of  mechanics.  They  were  inventors  of 
designs  in  architecture,  in  decoration,  in  furnishings,  in  textiles,  and  in 
the  beautiful  things  of  life  generally.  Their  inventiveness  in  the 
arts  and  crafts  was  especially  admirable  and,  indeed,  has  been  fruitful 
in  our  time,  since,  with  the  reawakening  in  this  matter,  we  have  gone 
back  to  imitate  their  designs.  Good  authorities  declare  these  to  be 
endless  in  number  and  variety.  Such  mechanical  inventions  as  were 


APPENDIX.  457 

needed  for  the  building  of  their  great  cathedrals,  their  municipal 
buildings,  abbeys,  castles,  piers,  bridges  and  the  like  were  admirably 
worked  out-.  Necessity  is  the  mother  of  invention,  and  whenever  needs 
asserted  themselves,  these  old  generations  responded  to  them,  very 
successfully.  There  are,  however,  a  number  of  inventions  that  would 
attract  attention  even  in  the  modern  time  for  their  practical  useful- 
ness and  ingenuity.  With  the  growth  of  the  universities  writing  be- 
came much  more  common,  textbooks  were  needed,  and  so  paper  was 
invented.  With  the  increase  of  reading,  to  replace  teaching  by 
hearing,  spectacles  were  invented.  Time  became  more  precious, 
clocks  were  greatly  improved,  and  we  hear  of  the  invention  of  some- 
thing like  an  alarm  clock,  an  apparatus  which,  after  a  fixed  number 
of  hours,  woke  the  monk  of  the  abbey  whose  duty  it  was  to  arouse 
the  others.  Organs  for  churches  were  greatly  improved,  bells  were 
perfected,  and  everything  else  in  connection  with  the  churche*  so 
well  fashioned  that  we  still  use  them  in  their  Thirteenth  Ce 
forms.  Gunpowder  was  not  invented,  but  a  great  many  new 
were  found  for  it,  and  Roger  Bacon  even  suggested,  as  I  have  said, 
that  sometime  explosives  would  enable  boats  to  move  by  sea  with- 
out sails  or  oars,  or  carriages  to  move  on  land  without  horses  or  men. 
Roger  Bacon  even  suggested  the  possibility  of  airships,  described 
how  one  might  be  made,  the  wings  of  which  would  be  worked  by  a 
windlass,  and  thought  that  he  could  make  it.  His  friend  and  pupil, 
Peregrinus,  invented  the  double  pivoted  compass,  and,  as  the  first  per- 
petual-motion faddist,  described  how  he  would  set  about  making  a 
magnetic  engine  that  he  thought  would  run  forever.  When  we  re- 
call how  much  they  accomplished  mechanically  in  the  construction  of 
buildings,  it  becomes  evident  that  any  mechanical  problem  that  these 
generations  wanted  solved  they  succeeded  in  solving  very  well. 
What  they  have  left  us  as  inventions  are  among  the  most  useful  ap- 
pliances that  we  have.  Without  paper  and  without  spectacles,  the  in- 
teilectual  world  would  be  in  a  sad  case,  indeed.  Many  of  the  secrets 
of  their  inventions  in  the  arts  and  crafts  have  been  lost,  and,  in 
spite  of  all  our  study,  we  have  not  succeeded  in  rediscovering  them. 

XXIII.    INDUSTRY  AND  TRADE. 

We  are  rather  inclined  to  think  that  large  organizations  of  in- 
dustry and  trade  were  reserved  for  comparatively  modern  times.  To 
think  so,  however,  is  to  forget  the  place  occupied  by  the  monasteries 
and  convents  in  the  olden  time.  We  have  heard  much  of  the  lazy 
monks,  but  only  from  those  who  know  nothing  at  all  about  them. 
Idleness  in  the  monasteries  was  one  of  the  accusations  made  by  the 
commission  set  to  furnish  evidence  to  Henry  VIII.  on  which  he  might 
suppress  the  monasteries,  but  every  modern  historian  has  rejected 
the  findings  of  that  commission  as  false.  Many  forms  of  manu- 
facture were  carried  on  in  the  monasteries  and  convents.  They  were 


458  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

the  principal  bookmakers  and  bookbinders.  To  a  great  extent  they 
were  the  manufacturers  of  art  fabrics  and  arts-and-crafts  work  in- 
tended for  church  use,  but  also  for  the  decoration  of  luxurious  private 
apartments.  Most  of  us  have  known  something  of  all  this  finer 
work,  but  not  that  they  had  much  to  do  with  cruder  industries  also. 
They  were  millers,  cloth-makers,  brush-  and  broom-makers,  shoe- 
makers for  themselves  and  their  tenantry;  knitting  was  done  in  the 
convents,  and  all  the  finer  fancy  work.  A  recent  meeting  of  the  In- 
stitute of  Mining  Engineers  in  England  brought  out  some  discussion  of 
coal  mining  in  connection  with  the  early  history  of  the  coal  mines  in 
England.  The  records  of  many  of  the  English  monasteries  show  that 
in  early  times  the  monks  knew  the  value  of  coal,  and  used  it  rather 
freely.  They  also  mined  it  for  others.  The  monks  at  Tynemouth  are 
known  to  have  been  mining  coal  on  the  Manor  of  Tynemouth  in 
1269,  and  shipping  it  to  a  distance.  At  Durham  and  at  Finchale  Ab- 
bey they  were  doing  this  also  about  the  same  time.  It  would  require 
special  study  to  bring  out  the  interesting  details,  but  there  is  abundant 
material  not  alone  for  a  chapter,  but  for  a  volume  on  the  industries 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  which,  like  the  education  and  the  literature 
and  the  culture  of  the  time,  we  have  thought  undeveloped,  because  we 
knew  nothing  of  them. 

The  relation  of  the  monasteries  to  trade,  domestic  and  foreign, 
is  very  well  brought  out  in  a  paragraph  of  Mr.  Ralph  Adams  Cram's 
book  on  "The  Ruined  Abbeys  of  Great  Britain"  (New  York,  The 
Churchman  Co.,  1905),  in  which  he  describes  the  remains  at  Beaulieu, 
which  show  the  place  of  that  monastery,  not  by  any  means  one  of  the 
most  important  in  England,  in  trade.  For  the  benefit  of  their  ten- 
antry others  had  done  even  more. 

"  Some  idea  of  the  power  of  one  of  these  great  monasteries  may 
be  gained  from  traces  still  existing  of  the  center  of  trade  built  up 
by  the  monks  outside  their  gates.  Here,  at  the  head  of  tide  water,  in 
a  most  out-of-the-way  spot,  a  great  stone  quay  was  constructed,  to 
which  came  ships  from  foreign  lands.  Near  by  was  a  great  market- 
place, now,  as  then,  called  Cheapside,  though  commerce  exists  there 
no  longer.  At  the  height  of  monastic  glory  the  religious  houses  were 
actually  the  chief  centers  of  industry  and  civilization,  and  around 
them  grew  up  the  eager  villages,  many  of  which  now  exist,  even 
though  their  impulse  and  original  inspiration  have  long  since  de- 
parted. Of  course,  the  possessions  of  the  abbey  reached  far  away 
from  the  walls  in  every  direction,  including  many  farms  even  at  a 
great  distance,  for  the  abbeys  were  then  the  great  landowners,  and 
beneficent  landlords  they  were  as  well,  even  in  their  last  days,  for  we 
have  many  records  of  the  cruelty  and  hardships  that  came  to  the 
tenants  the  moment  the  stolen  lands  came  into  the  hands  of  lay- 
men." 

XXIV.    FAIRS  AND  MARKETS. 

A  chapter  might  well  have  been  devoted  to  showing  the  significance 
of  those  curious  old  institutions,  the  fairs  and  market  days  of  the 


APPENDIX.  459 

Middle  Ages.  The  country  folk  flocked  into  town,  bringing  with 
them  their  produce,  and  found  there  gathered  from  many  parts 
merchants  come  to  exchange  and  barter.  The  expense  of  maintain- 
ing a  store  all  the  year  around  was  done  away  with,  and  profits  did 
not  have  to  be  large.  Exchanges  were  direct,  and  the  profits  of  the 
middlemen  were  to  a  great  extent  eliminated.  It  was  distinctly  to 
the  advantage  of  the  poor,  for  the  expenses  of  commerce  were  limited 
to  the  greatest  possible  extent,  and  every  advantage  accrued  to  the  cus- 
tomer. 

Besides,  these  market  days  became  days  of  innocent  merriment, 
amusement  and  diversion.  Wandering  purveyors  of  amusement  fol- 
lowed the  fairs,  and  obtained  their  living  from  the  generosity  of  the 
people  who  were  amused.  These  amusements  were  conducted  out  of 
doors,  and  with  very  few  of  the  objectionable  features  as  regards 
hygiene  and  morality  that  are  likely  to  attach  themselves  to  the  same 
things  in  our  day.  The  amusement  was  what  we  would  call  now 
vaudeville,  singing,  dancing,  the  exhibition  of  trained  animals,  acro- 
batic feats  of  various  kinds,  so  that  we  cannot  very  well  say  that  our 
people  are  in  advance  of  their  medieval  forbears  in  such  matters, 
since  their  taste  is  about  the  same.  Fairs  and  market  days  made 
country  life  less  monotonous  by  their  regular  recurrence,  and  so 
prevented  that  emptying  of  the  country  into  the  city  which  we 
deprecate  in  our  time.  They  had  economic,  social,  even  moral  ad- 
vantages, that  are  worth  while  studying. 

XXV.    INTENSIVE  FARMING. 

We  hear  much  of  intensive  farming  in  the  modern  time,  and  it  is 
supposed  to  be  a  distinctly  modern  invention  mothered  by  the  neces- 
sity due  to  great  increase  of  population.  One  of  the  most  striking 
features  of  the  story  of  monasticism  in  the  countries  of  Europe,  how- 
ever, during  the  Middle  Ages,  and  especially  during  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  when  so  many  of  the  greatest  abbeys  reached  a  climax  of 
power  and  influence  and  beauty  of  construction,  is  their  successful  de- 
votion paid  to  agriculture.  In  the  modern  time  we  are  gradually 
learning  the  lesson  of  growing  larger  and  larger  crops  on  the  same 
area  of  ground  by  proper  selection  of  seed,  and  of  developing  cattle 
in  such  a  way  as  to  make  them  most  valuable  as  a  by-product  of 
farming.  This  is  exactly  what  the  old  monastic  establishments  did. 
At  the  beginning  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  many  of  them  were  situ- 
ated in  rather  barren  regions,  sometimes,  indeed,  surrounded  by  thick 
forests,  but  at  the  end  of  the  century  all  the  great  monastic  estab- 
lishments had  succeeded  in  making  beautiful  luxuriant  gardens  for 
themselves,  and  had  taught  their  numerous  tenantry  the  great  lessons 
of  agricultural  improvement  which  made  for  plenty  and  happiness. 

Many  monasteries  belonged  to  the  same  religious  order,  and  the 
traditions  of  these  were  carried  from  one  to  the  other  by  visiting 


460  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

monks  or  sometimes  by  the  transfer  of  members  of  one  community 
to  another.  The  monastic  establishments  were  the  great  farmers  of 
Europe,  and  it  was  their  proud  boast  that  their  farming  lands,  in- 
stead of  being  exhausted  from  year  to  year,  were  rather  increasing  in 
value.  They  doubtless  had  many  secrets  of  farming  that  were  lost 
and  had  to  be  rediscovered  in  the  modern  time,  just  as  in  the  arts 
and  crafts,  for  their  success  in  farming  was  as  noteworthy.  Their 
knowledge  of  trees  must  have  been  excellent,  since  they  surrounded 
themselves  with  fine  forests,  at  times  arranged  so  as  to  provide  shady 
walks  and  charming  avenues.  Their  knowledge  of  simple  farming 
must  have  been  thorough,  for  the  farms  of  the  monasteries  were 
always  the  most  prosperous,  and  the  tenantry  were  always  the  hap- 
piest. With  the  traditions  that  we  have  especially  in  English  history, 
this  seems  almost  impossible  to  credit,  but  these  traditions,  manu- 
factured for  a  purpose,  have  now  been  entirely  discredited.  We  have 
learned  in  recent  years  what  wonderful  scholars,  architects,  painters, 
teachers,  engineers  these  monks  were,  and  so  it  is  not  surprising  to 
find  that  they  had  magnificently  developed  agricultural  knowledge  as 
well  as  that  of  every  other  department  in  which  they  were  par- 
ticularly interested. 

XXVI.  CARTOGRAPHY  AND  THE  TEACHING  OF 
GEOGRAPHY. 

In  the  chapter  on  Great  Explorers  and  The  Foundation  of  Geog- 
graphy,  in  the  body  of  the  book,  much  might  have  been  said  about 
maps  and  map-making,  for  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  a  great 
period  in  this  matter.  Lecoy  de  la  Marche  among  his  studies  of  the 
Thirteenth  Century  has  included  a  volume  of  a  collection  of  the 
maps  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  If  the  purpose  had  been  to  make 
this  a  work  of  erudition  rather  than  of  popular  information,  much 
might  have  been  said  of  the  cartography  of  the  time  even  from  this 
work  alone  (Receuil  de  Charles  du  XII le  Siecle,  Paris,  1878).  One 
of  the  great  maps  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  that  on  the  Cathedral 
wall  of  Hereford,  deserves  a  place  here.  It  was  made  just  at  the  end 
of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  The  idea  of  its  maker  was  to  convey  as 
much  information  as  possible  about  the  earth,  and  not  merely  in- 
dicate its  political  divisions  and  the  relative  size  and  position  of  the 
different  parts.  It  is  to  a  certain  extent  at  least  a  resume  of  history, 
of  physical  geography,  and  even  of  geographical  biology  and  an- 
thropology, for  it  has  indications  as  to  the  dwelling-place  of  animals 
and  curious  types  of  men.  It  contains,  besides,  references  to  inter- 
esting objects  of  other  kinds.  Because  of  its  interest  I  have  re- 
produced the  map  itself,  and  the  key  to  it  with  explanations  pub- 
lished at  Hereford. 


APPENDIX 


461 


irHje    nt          p ; 

PRESERVED    IN    HEREFORD   CATHEDRAL." 


The  Map  is  executed  on  a  single  sheet  of  vellum,  54  in.  in  breadth, 
by  63  in.  in  extreme  height.  It  is  fixed  on  a  strong  framework  of 
oak.  At  the  top  (Fig.  i)  is  a  representation  of  the  Last  Judgment. 
Our  Saviour  is  represented  in  glory,  and  below  is  the  Virgin  Mary 
interceding  for  mankind. 

For  convenience  of  reference  the  Key  Map  is  divided  into  squares 
marked  by  Roman  capitals,  with  the  more  prominent  objects  in 
figures.  I. — Commencing  with  sq.  I.  the  circle  marked  by  Fig.  2  rep- 
resents the  Garden  of  Eden,  with  the  four  rivers,  and  Adam  and 
Eve  eating  the  forbidden  fruit.  The  remainder  of  the  square,  as 
also  in  II.  and  III.,  is  occupied  by  India.  At  Fig.  3  is  shown  the 
expulsion  of  Adam  and  Eve,  to  the  right  of  which  is  shown  a  race 
of  Giants,  and  to  the  left  the  City  of  Enoch,  and  still  further  the 
Golden  Mountains  guarded  by  Dragons.  Below  these  mountains  are 
shown  a  race  of  pigmies.  In  a  space  bounded  by  two  rivers  is  placed 
a  crocodile,  and  immediately  below  a  female  warrior.  To  the  left  of 
the  latter  are  a  pair  of  birds  called  in  the  Map  Alerions.  The  large 


462  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

river  to  the  left  is  the  Ganges.  II. — Shows  one  of  the  inhabitants  of 
this  part  of  India,  who  are  said  to  have  but  one  foot,  which  is  suf- 
ficiently large  to  serve  as  an  umbrella  to  shelter  themselves  from  the 
sun.  The  city  in  the  center  is  Samarcand.  III. — In  which  is  seen 
an  Elephant,  to  the  left  a  Parrot.  A  part  of  the  Red  Sea  is  also 
shown  with  the  Island  of  Taprobana  (Ceylon),  on  which  are  shown 
two  Dragons.  It  also  bears  an  inscription  denoting  that  dragons 
and  elephants  are  found  there.  The  small  Islands  shown  are  Crise, 
Argire,  Ophir,  and  Frondisia  (Aphrodisia).  IV. — Contains  the  Cas- 
pian Sea,  below  which  is  a  figure  holding  its  tail  in  his  hand,  and 
which  the  author  calls  the  Minotaur.  To  the  left  is  shown  one  of 
the  Albani,  who  are  said  to  see  better  at  night  than  in  the  daytime. 
Below  are  two  warriors  in  combat  with  a  Griffin  (Fig.  27).  V. — In 
the  upper  part  are  Bokhara  and  Thrace,  in  the  latter  of  wb'ch  (Fig. 
29)  is  shown  the  Pelican  feeding  its  young,  to  the  left  a  singular 
figure  representing  the  Cicones,  and  to  the  right  the  Camel,  in 
Bactria.  Below  to  the  left  is  the  Tiger,  and  on  the  right  an  animal 
with  a  human  head  and  the  body  of  a  lion,  called  the  Mantichora. 
Still  lower  is  seen  Noah's  ark  (Fig.  28),  in  which  are  shown  three 
human  figures,  with  beasts,  birds  and  serpents.  In  the  lower  corner, 
at  Fig.  26,  is  the  Golden  Fleece.  VI. — The  upper  parts  contain  Eaby- 
lonia,  with  the  City  of  Babylon  (Fig.  4)  on  the  river  Euphrates,  be- 
low which  is  the  city  of  Damascus,  which  has  on  its  right  an  un- 
known animal  called  the  Marsok.  To  the  right  is  Lot's  wife  turned 
into  a  pillar  of  salt  (Fig.  8).  Decapolis  and  the  River  Jordan  are 
near  the  bottom  of  the  square.  Above  the  River  Euphrates  is  a  figure 
in  a  frame  representing  the  Patriarch  Abraham's  residence  at  Ur  of 
the  Chaldees.  VII.— The  Red  Sea  (Figs.  5,  5)  is  the  most  C9n- 
spicuous  object  here.  In  the  fork  formed  by  it  is  shown  the  giving 
of  the  Tables  of  The  Law  on  Mount  Sinai.  Below,  and  touching 
the  line  (Fig.  6)  showing  the  wanderings  of  the  Israelites,  is  seen 
the  worship  of  the  Golden  Calf.  The  Dead  Sea  and  submerged  Cities 
are  shown  lower  down  to  the  left,  and  between  this  and  the  Red  Sea 
is  the  Phoenix.  At  the  bottom  is  a  mythical  animal  with  long  horns, 
called  the  Eale.  VIII. — In  the  upper  part  is  the  Monastery  of  St. 
Anthony  in  Ethiopia.  The  river  to  the  left  is  the  Nile,  between 
this  and  a  great  interior  lake  (Figs.  7,  7)  is  a  figure  of  Satyr.  Be- 
yond the  lake,  and  extending  a  distance  down  the  Map  (Figs.  12,  12, 
12),  are  various  singular  figures,  supposed  to  represent  the  races 
dwelling  there.  In  a  circular  island  to  the  left  (Meroe)  is  a  man 
riding  a  crocodile,  and  at  the  bottom  left-hand  corner  is  a  centaur. 
IX. — The  upper  part  is  Scythia,  and  shows  some  cannibals,  below 
which  (Fig.  25)  are  two  Scythians  in  combat.  Under  this  again  is  a 
man  leading  a  horse  with  a  human  skin  thrown  over  it,  and  to  the 
right  of  the  latter  is  placed  the  ostrich.  X. — Asia  Minor  with  the 
Black  Sea  (Fig.  24).  Many  cities  are  shown  prominent,  among 
which  is  Troy  (Fig.  21),  described  as  "  Troja  civitas  bellicosissima." 
Near  the  bottom  to  the  left  is  Constantinople.  The  lynx  is  shown 
near  the  center.  XI. — Is  nearly  filled  by  the  Holy  Land.  In  the 
center  is  Jerusalem  (Fig.  23),  the  supposed  center  of  the  world, 
surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  and  above  is  the  Crucifixion.  Below 
Jerusalem  to  the  right  is  Bethlehem  with  the  manger.  Near  a  cir- 
cular place  to  the  right,  called  "  Puteus  Juramenti"  (well  of  the 
oath),  is  an  unknown  bird,  called  on  the  Map  Avis  Cirenus.  XII. — • 
Egypt  with  the  Nile.  At  the  upper  part  (Fig.  9)  are  Joseph's 
granaries,  i.e.,  the  Pyramids,  immediately  below  which  is  the  Sala- 
mander, and  to  the  right  of  that  the  Mandrake.  Fig.  10  denotes  the 
Delta  with  its  cities.  On  the  other  side  of  the  Nile,  and  partly  in  sq. 


^^^^^^^^^^ 

MAP  OF  THE  WORLD  (HEREFORD  CATHEDRAL) 


APPENDIX.  463 

XIII.,  is  the  Rhinoceros,  and  below  it  the  Unicorn.  XIII.— Ethiopia. 
In  the  upper  left-hand  corner  is  the  Sphinx,  and  near  the  bottom  the 
Temple  of  Jupiter  Ammon,  represented  by  a  singular  horse-shoe 
shaped  figure.  The  camp  of  Alexander  the  Great  is  in  the  bottom 
left-hand  corner,  immediately  above  which  is  the  boundary  line  be- 
tween Asia  and  Africa.  XIV.— At  the  top  of  the  left  is  Norway  in 
which  the  author  has  placed  the  Monkey.  The  middle  is  filled  by 
Russia.  The  small  circular  islands  on  the  left  are  the  Orkneys,  im- 
mediately below  which  is  an  inscription  relating  to  the  Seven  Sleep- 
ers. Scotland  and  part  of  England  are  shown  in  the  lower  part 
but  the  British  Isles  will  be  described  in  sq.  XIX.  The  singular  tri- 
angular figure  in  the  center  of  this  square  cannot  be  identified.  XV.— 
Germany,  with  part  of  Greece,  in  the  upper  part  to  the  right.  The 
Danube  and  its  tributaries  are  seen  in  the  upper  part,  in  the  lower 
is  the  Rhine.  On  the  bank  of  the  latter  the  scorpion  is  placed; 
Venice  is  shown  on  the  right.  XVI.— Contains  Italy  and  a  great 
part  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  (Fig.  14).  About  the  center  (Fig.  17) 
is  Rome,  which  bears  the  inscription,  "  Roma  caput  mundi  tenet  orbis 
frena  rotundi."  In  the  upper  part  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  is  seen  a 
Mermaid,  below  (Fig.  11)  is  the  Island  of  Crete,  with  its  famous  laby- 
rinth, to  the  left  of  which  is  the  rock  Scylla.  Below  Crete  is  Sicily 
(Fig.  15),  on  which  Mount  Etna  is  shown;  close  to  Sicily  is  the 
whirlpool  Charybdis.  XVII.— Part  of  Africa;  in  the  lower  part  to 
the  left,  on  a  promontory,  is  seen  Carthage ;  on  the  right  the  Leopard 
is  shown.  XVIII. — Also  part  of  Africa.  The  upper  part  is  Fezzan, 
below  is  shown  the  basilisk,  and  still  lower  some  Troglodytes  or 
dwellers  in  caves.  XIX.— On  the  left  hand  are  the  British  Isles  (Figs. 
19,  20,  22),  on  the  right  France.  Great  Britain  (Figs.  19,  22)  is  very 
fully  laid  down,  but  of  Ireland  the  author  seemed  to  know  but  little. 
In  England  twenty-six  cities  and  towns  are  delineated,  among  which 
Hereford  (H'ford)  is  conspicuous.  Twenty  rivers  are  also  seen, 
but  the  only  mountains  shown  are  the  Clee  Hills.  In  Wales,  Snow- 
don  is  seen,  and  the  towns  of  Carnarvon,  Conway  and  St.  David's.  In 
Ireland  four  towns,  Armagh,  Bangor,  Dublin  and  Kildare,  with  two 
rivers,  the  Banne,  which,  as  shown,  divides  the  island  in  two,  and 
the  Shannon.  In  Scotland  there  are  six  towns.  In  France  the  City 
of  Paris  (Fig.  18)  is  conspicuous.  XX. — The  upper  part  is  Provence, 
the  lower  Spain.  In  the  Mediterranean  Sea  are  laid  down,  among 
others,  the  Islands  of  Corsica,  Sardinia,  Majorca,  and  Minorca.  At 
the  bottom  are  (Fig.  16)  the  pillars  of  Hercules  (Gibraltar),  which 
were  considered  the  extreme  western  limits  of  the  world.  XXI. — At 
the  top  to  the  left  (Fig.  13)  is  St.  Augustine  of  Hippo,  in  his  ponti- 
fical habit.  And  at  the  opposite  corner  the  Lion,  below  which  are 
the  Agriophagi,  a  one-eyed  people  who  live  on  the  flesh  of  lions  and 
other  beasts.  The  kingdoms  on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean  are 
Algiers,  Setif,  and  Tangier. 


464  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


APPENDIX   III. 
CRITICISMS,  COMMENTS,  DOCUMENTS. 

HUMAN  PROGRESS. 

For  most  people  the  impossible  would  apparently  be  accomplished 
if  a  century  so  far  back  as  the  Thirteenth  were  to  be  even  seriously 
thought  of  as  the  greatest  of  centuries.  Evolution  has  come  to  be 
accepted  so  unquestioningly,  that  of  course  "we  are  the  heirs  of  all 
the  ages  of  the  foremost  files  of  time,"  and  must  be  far  ahead  of  our 
forbears,  especially  of  the  distant  past,  in  everything.  When  a  man 
talks  glibly  about  great  progress  in  recent  times,  he  usually  knows 
only  the  history  of  his  own  time  and  not  very  much  about  that.  Men 
who  have  studied  other  periods  seriously  hesitate  about  the  claim  of 
progress,  and  the  more  anyone  knows  about  any  other  period,  the  less 
does  he  think  of  his  own  as  surpassing.  There  are  many  exemplifica- 
tions of  this  in  recent  literature.  Because  this  was  a  cardinal  point  in 
many  criticisms  of  the  book,  it  has  seemed  well  to  illustrate  the  position 
here  taken  as  to  the  absence  of  progress  in  humanity  by  quotations 
from  recognized  authorities.  Just  as  the  first  edition  of  this  book  came 
from  the  press,  Ambassador  Bryce  delivered  his  address  at  Harvard  on 
"What  is  Progress?  "  It  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  for  August, 
1907.  Mr.  Bryce  is  evidently  not  at  all  persuaded  that  there  is  human 
progress  in  any  real  sense  of  the  word.  Some  striking  quotations  may 
be  made  from  the  address,  but  to  get  the  full  impression  of  Mr.  Bryce's 
reasons  for  hesitation  about  accepting  any  progress,  the  whole  article 
needs  to  be  read.  For  instance,  he  said: 

"It  does  not  seem  possible,  if  we  go  back  to  the  earliest  literature 
which  survives  to  us  from  Western  Asia  and  Southeastern  Europe,  to 
say  that  the  creative  powers  of  the  human  mind  in  such  subjects  as 
poetry,  philosophy,  and  historical  narrative  or  portraiture,  have  either 
improved  or  deteriorated.  The  poetry  of  the  early  Hebrews  and  of  the 
early  Greeks  has  never  been  surpassed  and  hardly  ever  equaled. 
Neither  has  the  philosophy  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  nor  the  speeches  of 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero.  Geniuses  like  Dante,  Chaucer,  and  Shakes- 
peare appear  without  our  being  able  to  account  for  them,  and  for  aught 
we  know  another  may  appear  at  any  moment.  It  is  just  as  difficult,  if 
we  look  back  five  centuries,  to  assert  either  progress  or  decline  in 
painting.  Sculpture  has  never  again  risen  to  so  high  a  level  as  it 
touched  in  the  fifth  century,  B.C.,  nor  within  the  last  three  centuries, 
to  so  high  a  level  as  it  reached  at  the  end  of  the  fifteenth.  But  we  can 
found  no  generalizations  upon  that  fact.  Music  is  the  most  inscrutable 
of  the  arts,  and  whether  there  is  any  progress  to  be  expected  other 


APPENDIX.  465 

than  that  which  may  come  from  a  further  improvement  in  instruments 
constituting  an  orchestra,  I  will  not  attempt  to  conjecture,  any  more 
than  I  should  dare  to  raise  controversy  by  inquiring  whether  Bee- 
thoven represents  progress  from  Mozart,  Wagner  progress  from 
Beethoven." 

Perhaps  the  most  startling  evidence  on  this  subject  of  the  absence 
of  evolution  in  humanity  is  the  opinion  of  Prof.  Flinders  Petrie,  th*. 
distinguished  English  authority  on  Egyptology,  who  has  added  nearly 
a  millennium  to  the  history  of  Egypt.  His  studies  have  brought  him 
in  intimate  contact  with  Egypt  from  2,000  to  5,000  B.C.  He  has  found 
no  reason  at  all  for  thinking  that  our  generation  is  farther  advanced  in 
any  important  qualities  than  men  were  during  this  period.  In  an  arti- 
cle on  "The Romance  of  Early  Civilization"  (The  Independent,  Jan.  7, 
1909),  he  said: 

1 '  We  have  now  before  us  a  view  of  the  powers  of  man  at  the  earliest 
point  to  which  we  can  trace  written  history,  and  what  strikes  us  most 
is  how  very  little  his  nature  or  abilities  have  changed  in  seven  thousand 
years ;  what  he  admired  we  admire;  what  were  his  limits  in  fine  handi- 
work also  are  ours.  We  may  have  a  wider  outlook,  a  greater  under- 
standing of  things ;  our  interests  may  have  extended  in  this  interval ; 
but  so  far  as  human  nature  and  tastes  go,  man  is  essentially  unchanged 
in  this  interval."  .  .  .  "  This  is  the  practical  outcome  of  extending  our 
view  of  man  three  times  as  far  back  as  we  used  to  look,  and  it  must 
teach  us  how  little  material  civilization  is  likely  in  the  future  to  change 
the  nature,  the  weaknesses,  or  the  abilities  of  our  ancestors  in  ages  yet 
to  come." 

Those  who  think  that  man  has  advanced  in  practical  wisdom  dur- 
the  6,000  yeasts  of  history,  forget  entirely  the  lessons  of  literature. 
Whenever  a  great  genius  has  written,  he  has  displayed  a  knowledge  of 
human  nature  as  great  as  any  to  be  found  at  any  other  time  in  the 
world's  history.  The  wisdom  of  Homer  and  of  Solomon  are  typical  ex- 
amples. Probably  the  most  striking  evidence  in  this  matter  is  to  be 
found  in  what  is  considered  to  be  the  oldest  book  ever  written.  This 
is  the  Instructions  of  Ptah  Hotep  to  his  son.  Ptah  Hotep  was  the 
vizier  of  King  Itosi,  of  the  Fifth  Dynasty  of  Egypt  (about  3650  B.  C.). 
There  is  nothing  that  a  father  of  the  modern  time  would  wish  to  tell 
his  boy  as  the  result  of  his  own  experience  that  is  not  to  be  found  in 
this  wise  advice  of  a  father,  nearly  6,000  years  ago.  This  was  written 
longer  before  Solomon  than  Solomon  is  before  us,  yet  no  practical 
knowledge  to  be  gained  from  intercourse  with  men  has  been  added  to 
what  this  careful  father  of  the  long  ago  has  written  out  for  his  son. 


THE  CENTURY  OF  ORIGINS. 

To  many  readers  apparently,  it  has  seemed  that  the  main  reason 
for  writing  of  The  Thirteenth  as  the  Greatest  of  Centuries  was  the  fact 
that  the  Church  occupied  so  large  a  place  in  the  life  of  that  time,  and 
that,  therefore,  most  of  what  was  accomplished  must  naturally  revert 


.'• 


466  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

tp  her  account.  It  is  not  only  those  who  are  interested  in  the  old 
Church,  however,  who  have  written  enthusiastically  about  the  Thir- 
teenth Century.  Since  writing  this  volume,  I  have  found  that  Mr. 
Frederick  Harrison  is  almost,  if  not  quite,  as  ardent  in  his  praise  of  it 
as  I  have  been.  There  are  many  others,  especially  among  the  histor- 
ians of  art  and  of  architecture,  who  apparently  have  not  been  able  to 
say  all  that  they  would  wish  in  admiration  of  this  supreme  century. 
Most  of  these  have  not  been  Catholics;  and  if  we  place  beside  Mr. 
Frederick  Harrison,  the  great  Positivist  of  our  generation,  Mr.  John 
Morley,  the  great  Rationalist,  the  chorus  of  agreement  on  the  subject 
of  the  greatness  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  ought  to  be  considered  about 
complete.  Mr.  Morley,  in  his  address  on  Popular  Culture,  delivered 
as  President  of  the  Midland  Institute,  England,  October,  1876  (Great 
Essays.  Putnam,  New  York),  said: 

"  It  is  the  present  that  really  interests  us ;  it  is  the  present  that  we 
seek  to  understand  and  to  explain.  I  do  not  in  the  least  want  to  know 
what  happened  in  the  past,  except  as  it  enables  me  to  see  my  way 
more  clearly  through  what  is  happening  to-day.  I  want  to  know  what 
men  thought  and  did  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  not  out  of  any  dilet- 
tante or  idle  antiquarian's  curiosity,  but  because  the  Thirteenth  Century 
is  at  the  root  of  what  men  think  and  do  in  the  nineteenth." 


EDUCATION. 

Many  even  of  the  most  benevolent  readers  of  the  book  have  been 
quite  sure  that  it  exaggerated  the  significance  of  medieval  education 
and,  above  all,  claimed  too  much  for  the  breadth  of  culture  given  by 
the  early  universities.  Prof.  Huxley  is  perhaps  the  last  man  of  recent 
times  who  would  be  suspected  for  a  moment  of  exaggerating  the  import 
of  medieval  education.  In  his  Inaugural  Address  on  Universities  Ac- 
tual and  Ideal,  delivered  as  Rector  of  Aberdeen  University,  after  dis- 
cussing the  subject  very  thoroughly,  he  said: 

"The  scholars  of  the  Medieval  Universities  seem  to  have  studied 
grammar,  logic  and  rhetoric;  arithmetic  and  geometry;  astronomy, 
theology  and  music.  Thus  their  work,  however  imperfect  and  faulty, 
judged  by  modern  lights,  it  may  have  been,  brought  them  face  to  face 
with  all  the  leading  aspects  of  the  many-sided  mind  of  man.  For 
these  studies  did  really  contain,  at  any  rate  in  embryo,  sometimes  it 
may  be  in  caricature,  what  we  now  call  philosophy,  mathematical  and 
physical  science,  and  art.  And  I  doubt  if  the  curriculum  of  any  modern 
university  shows  so  clear  and  generous  a  comprehension  of  what  is 
meant  by  culture,  as  this  old  Trivium  and  Quadrivium  does."  (Italics 
ours.) 

The  results  of  this  system  of  education  may  be  judged  best  perhaps 
from  Dante  as  an  example.  In  The  Popes  and  Science  (Fordham 
University  Press,  N.  Y.,  1908)  a  chapter  is  devoted  to  Dante  as  the 
typical  university  man  of  the  time,  above  all  in  his  knowledge  of 
science  as  displayed  in  his  great  poem.  No  poet  of  the  modern  time  has 


APPENDIX.  467 

turned  with  so  much  confidence  to  every  phase  of  science  for  his 
figures  as  this  product  of  medieval  universities.  Anyone  who  thinks 
that  the  study  of  science  is  recent,  or  that  nature  study  was  delayed 
till  our  day,  need  only  read  Dante  to  be  completely  undeceived. 

The  fact  that  the  scholars  and  the  professors  at  the  universities 
were  almost  without  exception  believers  in  the  possibility  of  the 
transmutation  of  metals  in  the  old  days,  used  to  be  considered  by  many 
educated  people  as  quite  sufficient  to  stamp  them  as  lacking  in  judg- 
ment and  as  prone  to  believe  all  sorts  of  incredible  and  even  impossible 
things  without  justification.  Such  supercilious  condemnation  of  the 
point  of  view  of  the  medieval  scholars  in  this  matter,  however,  has 
recently  received  a  very  serious  jolt.  Sometime  ago,  Sir  William 
Ramsey,  the  greatest  of  living  English  chemists,  announced  at  the 
meeting  of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science, 
that  he  had  succeeded  in  changing  copper  into  lithium.  This  created 
a  sensation  at  the  time,  but  represented,  after  all,  a  culmination  of 
effort  in  this  direction  that  had  long  been  expected.  More  recently, 
Sir  William  has  reported  to  the  British  Chemical  Society  that  he  has 
succeeded  in  obtaining  carbon  from  four  substances  not  containing  this 
element— bismuth,  hydro -fluo- silicic  acid,  thorium  and  zirconium. 
An  American  professor  of  chemistry  has  declared  that  he  would  like  to 
remove  all  traces  of  silver  from  a  quantity  of  lead  ore,  and  then,  after 
allowing  it  to  stand  for  some  years,  have  the  opportunity  to  re-examine 
it,  since  he  is  confident  that  he  would  find  further  traces  of  silver  in  it 
that  had  developed  in  the  meantime.  He  is  sure  that  the  reason  why 
these  two  metals  always  occur  together,  as  do  copper  and  gold,  is  that 
they  are  products  of  a  developmental  process,  the  precious  metals 
being  a  step  farther  on  in  that  process  than  the  so-called  base  metals. 
It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  medieval  scholars  were  not  so  silly  as 
they  used  to  appear  before  we  knew  enough  about  the  subject  to  judge 
them  properly.  Only  their  supercilious  critics  were  silly. 

It  is  probably  with  regard  to  the  exact  sciences  that  most  even 
educated  people  are  quite  sure  that  the  Thirteenth  Century  does  not 
deserve  to  be  thought  of  as  representing  great  human  advance.  For 
them  the  Middle  Ages  were  drowsily  speculative,  but  never  exact  in 
thinking.  Of  course,  such  people  know  nothing  of  the  intense  exact- 
ness of  thought  of  St.  Thomas  or  Albertus  Magnus  or  Duns  Scotus.  It 
would  be  impossible,  moreover,  to  make  them  realize,  from  the  writings 
of  these  men,  how  exact  human  thought  actually  was  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  though  the  more  that  modern  students  devote  themselves  to 
scholastic  philosophy,  the  more  surely  do  they  appreciate  and  admire 
this  very  quality  in  the  medieval  philosophy.  For  such  people,  very 
probably,  the  only  evidence  that  would  have  made  quite  an  adequate 
answer  to  their  objection,  would  be  a  chapter  on  the  mathematics  of 
the  Thirteenth  Century.  That  might  very  easily  have  been  made,  for 
Cantor,  in  his  History  of  Mathematics  (Vorlesungen  Uber  Geschichte 


468  GREA  TEST  OF  CEN  TURIES. 

der  Mathematik,  Leipzig,  1892),  devotes  nearly  100  pages  of  his 
second  volume  to  the  mathematicians  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  two 
of  whom,  Leonardo  of  Pisa  and  Jordanus  Nemorarius,  did  so  much  in 
Arithmetic,  the  Theory  of  Numbers,  Algebra  and  Geometry,  as  to  make 
a  revolution  in  mathematics.  Cantor  says  that  they  accomplished  so 
much,  that  their  contemporaries  and  successors  could  scarcely  follow 
them,  much  less  go  beyond  them.  They  had  great  disciples,  like  John 
of  Sacrobusco  (probably  John  of  Holy  wood,  near  Dublin),  Joannes 
Campanus  and  others.  Cantor  calls  attention  particularly  to  the  spread 
of  arithmetical  knowledge  among  the  masses,  which  is  a  well-deserved 
tribute  to  the  century,  for  it  was  a  characteristic  of  the  time  that  the 
new  thoughts  and  discoveries  of  scholars  were  soon  made  practical  and 
penetrated  very  widely  among  the  people.  Brewer,  in  the  Preface  to 
Roger  Bacon's  works,  quotes  some  of  Bacon's  expressions  with  regard 
to  the  value  of  mathematics.  The  English  Franciscan  said:  "For 
without  mathematics,  nothing  worth  knowing  in  philosophy  can  be 
attained."  And  again:  "For  he  who  knows  not  mathematics  cannot 
know  any  other  science;  what  is  more,  he  cannot  discover  his  own 
ignorance  or  find  its  proper  remedy."  The  term  mathematics,  as  used 
by  Bacon,  had  a  much  wider  application  then  than  now,  and  Brewer 
notes  that  the  Thirteenth  Century  scientist  included  therein  Geometry, 
Arithmetic,  Astronomy,  and  Music." 

With  regard  to  post-graduate  education,  the  best  evidence  that,  far 
from  any  exaggeration  of  what  was  accomplished  in  the  Thirteenth 
Century,  there  has  been  a  very  conservative  estimate  of  it  made  in  the 
book,  may  be  gathered  from  the  legally  erected  standards  of  the  med- 
ical schools  and  the  legal  status  of  the  medical  profession.  In  the 
Appendix  of  The  Popes  and  Science,  two  Bulls  are  published,  issued  by 
Pope  John  XXII.  (Circa,  1320),  establishing  medical  schools  in 
Perugia,  at  that  time  in  the  Papal  States,  and  in  Cahors,  the  birth- 
place of  this  pope.  These  bulls  were  really  the  formal  charters  of 
the  medical  schools.  They  require  three  years  of  preliminary  study 
at  the  university  and  four  or  five  years  at  medicine  before  the  degree 
of  doctor  may  be  granted,  and  in  addition  emphasized  that  the  curricula 
of  the  new  medical  schools  must  be  equal  to  those  of  Paris  and  Bologna. 
These  bulls  were  issued  in  the  early  part  of  the  fourteenth  century, 
and  show  the  height  to  which  the  standards  of  medical  education 
had  been  raised.  There  will  be  found  also  a  law  of  Frederick  II., 
issued  1241,  requiring  for  all  physicians  who  wished  to  practice  in 
the  Two  Sicilies  three  years  of  preliminary  study— four  years  at  the 
medical  school  and  a  year  of  practice  with  a  physician  before  the 
diploma  which  constituted  a  license  to  practice  would  be  issued. 
This  law  is  also  a  pure  drug  law  forbidding  the  sale  of  impure  drugs 
under  penalty  of  confiscation  of  goods,  and  the  preparation  of  them 
under  penalty  of  death.  Our  pure  drug  law  was  passed  about  the  time 
of  the  issue  of  the  first  edition  of  this  book. 


APPENDIX.  469 

Those  who  ask  for  the  results  of  this  post-graduate  training  may 
find  them  in  the  story  of  Guy  de  Chauliac,  the  Father  of  Modern  Sur- 
gery. His  life  formed  the  basis  of  a  lecture  before  the  Johns  Hopkins 
Medical  Club  that  is  to  be  published  in  the  Bulletin  of  John  Hopkins 
Hospital.  It  is  incorporated  in  Catholic  Churchmen  in  Science,  Second 
Series  (The  Dolphin  Press,  Phila.,  1909).  We  know  Chauliac's  work 
not  by  tradition,  but  from  his  great  text-book  on  surgery.  This  great 
Papal  physician  of  the  fourteenth  century  operated  within  the  skull,  did 
not  hesitate  to  open  the  thorax,  sewed  up  wounds  of  the  intestines,  and 
discussed  such  subjects  as  hernia,  catheterization,  the  treatment  of 
fractures,  and  manipulative  surgery  generally  with  wonderful  technical 
ability.  His  book  was  the  most  used  text-book  for  the  next  two  cen- 
turies, and  has  won  the  admiration  of  everyone  who  has  ever  read  it. 

TECHNICAL  EDUCATION  OF  THE  MASSES. 

Some  of  my  friends  courteously  but  firmly  have  insisted  with  me 
that  I  have  greatly  exaggerated  the  technical  abilities  of  the  village 
workmen  of  the  Middle  Ages.  That  every  town  of  less  than  ten  thou- 
sand inhabitants  in  England  was  able  to  supply  such  workmen  as  we  can 
scarcely  obtain  in  our  cities  of  a  million  inhabitants,  and  in  that  scanty 
population  supply  them  in  greater  numbers  than  we  can  now  secure 
them  from  our  teeming  populations,  seems  to  many  simply  impossible. 

What  I  have  been  trying  to  say,  however,  in  the  chapters  on  the 
Arts  and  Crafts  and  on  Popular  Education,  has  been  much  better  said 
by  an  authority  that  will  scarcely  be  questioned  by  my  critics.  The  Rev. 
Augustus  Jessopp,  D.  D.,  who  has  been  for  twenty  years  the  Rector  of 
Seaming  in  England,  who  is  an  Honorary  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College 
and  of  Worcester  College,  Oxford,  besides  being  an  Honorary  Canon  in 
the  Cathedral  of  Norwich,  has  devoted  much  time  and  study  to  this 
question  of  how  the  cathedrals  were  built  and  finished.  Twenty  years 
of  his  life  have  been  spent  in  the  study  of  the  old  English  parish  and  of 
parish  life.  He  has  studied  the  old  parish  registers,  and  talks,  there- 
fore, not  from  distant  impressions,  but  from  the  actual  facts  as  they  are 
recorded.  If  to  his  position  as  an  antiquarian  authority  I  add  the  fact 
that  he  is  not  a  member  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  to  the  credit  of 
which  so  much  of  this  popular  education  and  accomplishment  in  the 
arts  and  crafts  of  the  century  accrues,  the  value  of  his  evidence  is 
placed  entirely  above  suspicion  of  partisan  partiality.  In  his  chapter  on 
Parish  Life  in  England,  in  his  book  "Before  the  Great  Pillage"  (Be- 
fore the  Great  Pillage  with  other  Miscellanies,  by  Augustus  Jessopp, 
D.  D.,  London.  T.  Fisher  Unwin,  Paternoster  Square,  1901),  he  says: 

"The  evidence  is  abundant  and  positive,  and  is  increasing  upon  us 
year  by  year,  that  the  work  done  upon  the  fabrics  of  our  churches,  and 
the  other  work  done  in  the  beautifying  of  the  interior  of  our  churches, 
such  as  the  woodcarving  of  our  screens,  the  painting  of  the  lovely  fig- 


470  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

ures  in  the  panels  of  those  screens,  the  embroidery  of  the  banners  and 
vestments,  the  frescoes  on  the  walls,  the  engraving  of  the  monumental 
brasses,  the  stained  glass  in  the  windows,  and  all  that  vast  aggregate  of 
artistic  achievements  which  existed  in  immense  profusion  in  our  village 
churches  till  the  sixteenth  century  stripped  them  bare— all  this  was  exe- 
cuted by  local  craftsmen.  The  evidence  for  this  is  accumulating  upon 
us  every  year,  as  one  antiquary  after  another  succeeds  in  unearthing 
fragments  of  pre- Reformation  church- wardens'  accounts. 

"We  have  actual  contracts  for  church  building  and  church  repair- 
ing undertaken  by  village  contractors.  We  have  the  cost  of  a  rood 
screen  paid  to  a  village  carpenter,  of  painting  executed  by  local  artists. 
We  find  the  name  of  an  artificer,  described  as  aurifaber,  or  worker  in  gold 
and  silver,  living  in  a  parish  which  could  never  have  had  five  hundred 
inhabitants ;  we  find  the  people  in  another  place  casting  a  new  bell  and 
making  the  mould  for  it  themselves ;  we  find  the  blacksmith  of  another 
place  forging  the  iron  work  for  the  church  door,  or  we  get  a  payment 
entered  for  the  carving  of  the  bench  ends  in  a  little  church  five  hun- 
dred years  ago,  which  bench  ends  are  to  be  seen  in  that  church  at  the 
present  moment.  And  we  get  fairly  bewildered  by  the  astonishing 
wealth  of  skill  and  artistic  taste  and  aesthetic  feeling  which  there  must 
have  been  in  this  England  of  ours,  in  times  which  till  lately  we  had 
assumed  to  be  barbaric  times.  Bewildered,  I  say,  because  we  cannot 
understand  how  it  all  came  to  a  dead- stop  in  a  single  generation,  not 
knowing  that  the  frightful  spoliation  of  our  churches  and  other  parish 
buildings,  and  the  outrageous  plunder  of  the  parish  gilds  in  the  reign  of 
Edward  the  Sixth  by  the  horrible  band  of  robbers  that  carried  on  their 
detestable  work,  effected  such  a  hideous  obliteration,  such  a  clean  sweep 
of  the  precious  treasures  that  were  dispersed  in  rich  profusion  over  the 
whole  land,  that  a  dull  despair  of  ever  replacing  what  had  been  ruth- 
lessly pillaged  crushed  the  spirit  of  the  whole  nation,  and  art  died  out 
in  rural  England,  and  King  Whitewash  and  Queen  Ugliness  ruled  su- 
preme for  centuries. " 

My  argument  is  that  a  century  which  produced  such  artist -artisans 
everywhere,  had  technical  schools  in  great  profusion,  though  they  may 
not  have  been  called  by  any  such  ambitious  name. 

HOW  IT  AIvL  STOPPED. 

To  most  people  it  seems  impossible  to  understand  how  it  is  that,  if 
artistic  evolution  proceeded  to  the  perfection  which  it  now  seems  clear 
that  it  actually  attained  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries, 
we  are  only  just  getting  back  to  a  proper  state  of  public  taste  and  a 
right  degree  of  artistic  skill  in  many  of  these  same  accomplishments  at  the 
present  time.  That  thought  has  come  to  many  others  who,  knowing 
and  appreciating  medieval  progress  in  art  and  literature,  have  tried  to 
work  out  the  reasons  for  the  gap  that  exists  between  medieval  art  and 
modern  artistic  endeavor.  Some  of  these  explanations,  because  they 
serve  to  make  clear  why  art  evolution  stopped  so  abruptly  and  we  are 
retracing  our  steps  and  taking  models  from  the  past  rather  than  doing 
original  work  that  is  an  advance,  must  be  quoted  here.  Many  people 
will  find  in  them,  I  think,  the  reasons  for  their  misunderstanding  of 
the  old  times. 


APPENDIX.  471 

Gerhardt  Hauptmann,  who  is  very  well  known,  even  among  Eng- 
lish-speaking people,  as  one  of  the  great  living  German  dramatists, 
and  whose  " Sunken  Bell"  attracted  considerable  attention  in  both  its 
German  and  English  versions  here  in  New  York,  in  a  recent  criticism 
of  a  new  German  book,  declared  that  the  reason  for  the  gap  between 
modern  and  medieval  art  was  the  movement  now  coming  to  be  known 
as  the  religious  revolt  in  Germany  in  the  sixteenth  century.  He  said: 

"  I,  as  a  Protestant,  have  often  had  to  regret  that  we  purchased  our 
freedom  of  conscience,  our  individual  liberty,  at  entirely  too  high  a 
price.  In  order  to  make  room  for  a  small,  mean  little  plant  of  personal 
life,  we  destroyed  a  whole  garden  of  fancy  and  hewed  down  a  virgin 
forest  of  aesthetic  ideas.  We  went  even  so  far  in  the  insanity  of  our 
weakness  as  to  throw  out  of  the  garden  of  our  souls  the  fruitful  soil 
that  had  been  accumulating  for  thousands  of  years,  or  else  we  plowed 
it  under  sterile  clay. 

"We  have  to-day,  then,  an  intellectual  culture  that  is  well  pro- 
tected by  a  hedge  of  our  personality,  but  within  this  hedge  we  have 
only  delicate  dwarf  trees  and  unworthy  plants,  the  poorer  progeny  of 
great  predecessors.  We  have  telegraph  lines,  bridges  and  railroads, 
but  there  grow  no  churches  and  cathedrals,  only  sentry  boxes  and 
barracks.  We  need  gardeners  who  will  cause  the  present  sterilizing 
process  of  the  soil  to-  stop,  and  will  enrich  the  surface  by  working  up 
into  it  the  rich  layers  beneath.  In  my  work-room  there  is  ever  before 
me  the  photograph  of  Sebaldus'  Tomb  (model  Metropolitan  Museum, 
New  York) .  This  rich  German  symbol  rose  from  the  invisible  in  the 
most  luxuriant  developmental  period  of  German  art.  As  a  formal  pro- 
duct of  that  art,  it  is  very  difficult  to  appreciate  it  as  it  deserves.  It 
seems  to  me  as  one  of  the  most  wonderful  bits  of  work  in  the  whole 
field  of  artistic  accomplishment.  The  soul  of  all  the  great  medieval 
period  encircles  this  silver  coffin,  wrapping  it  up  into  a  noble  unity, 
and  enthrones  on  the  very  summit  of  death,  Life  as  a  growing  child. 
Such  a  work  could  only  have  come  to  its  perfection  in  the  protected 
spaces  of  the  old  Mother  Church." 

Rev.  Dr.  Jessopp,  in  his  book,  already  cited,  "  The  Great  Pillage," 
does  not  hesitate  to  state  in  unmistakable  terms  the  reason  why  all 
the  beauty  and  happiness  went  out  of  English  country  life  some  two 
centuries  after  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  how  it  came  about  that  the 
modern  generations  have  had  to  begin  over  again  from  the  beginning, 
and  not  where  our  Catholic  forefathers  of  the  medieval  period  left  us, 
in  what  used  to  be  the  despised  Middle  Ages.  He  says: 

"When  I  talk  of  the  great  pillage,  I  mean  that  horrible  and  out- 
rageous looting  of  pur  churches  other  than  conventual,  and  the  robbing 
of  the  people  of  this  country  of  property  in  land  and  movables,  which 
property  had  actually  been  inherited  by  them  as  members  of  those 
organized  religious  communities  known  as  parishes.  It  is  necessary  to 
emphasize  the  fact  that  in  the  general  scramble  of  the  Terror  under 
Henry  the  Eighth,  and  of  the  Anarchy  in  the  days  of  Edward  the 
Sixth,  there  was  only  one  class  that  was  permitted  to  retain  any  large 
portion  of  its  endowments.  The  monasteries  were  plundered  even  to 
their  very  pots  and  pans.  Almshouses  in  which  old  men  and  women 
were  fed  and  clothed  were  robbed  to  the  last  pound,  the  poor  alms-folk 
being  turned  out  into  the  cold  at  an  hour's  warning  to  beg  their  bread. 


472  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

Hospitals  for  the  sick  and  needy,  sometimes  magnificently  provided 
with  nurses  and  chaplains,  whose  very  raison  d'etre  was  that  they  were 
to  look  after  and  care  for  those  who  were  past  caring  for  themselves — 
these  were  stripped  of  all  their  belongings,  the  inmates  sent  out  to 
hobble  into  some  convenient  dry  ditch  to  lie  down  and  die  in,  or  to 
crawl  into  some  barn  or  hovel,  there  to  be  tended,  not  without  fear  of 
consequences,  by  some  kindly  man  or  woman  who  could  not  bear  to 
see  a  suffering  fellow  creature  drop  down  and  die  at  their  own  door- 
posts. 

"We  talk  with  a  great  deal  of  indignation  of  the  Tweed  ring.  The 
day  will  come  when  someone  will  write  the  story  of  two  other  rings — 
the  ring  of  the  miscreants  who  robbed  the  monasteries  in  the  reign  of 
Henry  the  Eighth  was  the  first ;  but  the  ring  of  the  robbers  who  robbed 
the  poor  and  helpless  in  the  reign  of  Edward  the  Sixth  was  ten  times 
worse  than  the  first. 

1 '  The  Universities  only  just  escaped  the  general  confiscation ;  the 
friendly  societies  and  benefit  clubs  and  the  gilds  did  not  escape.  The 
accumulated  wealth  of  centuries,  their  houses  and  lands,  their  money, 
their  vessels  of  silver  and  their  vessels  of  gold,  their  ancient  cups  and 
goblets  and  salvers,  even  to  their  very  chairs  and  tables,  were  all  set 
down  in  inventories  and  catalogues,  and  all  swept  into  the  great  robbers' 
hoard.  Last,  but  not  least,  the  immense  treasures  in  the  churches,  the 
joy  and  boast  of  every  man  and  woman  and  child  in  England,  who  day 
by  day  and  week  by  week  assembled  to  worship  in  the  old  houses  of 
God  which  they  and  their  fathers  had  built,  and  whose  every  vestment 
and  chalice  and  candlestick  and  banner,  organs  and  bells,  and  picture 
and  image  and  altar  and  shrine  they  looked  upon  as  their  own  and  part 
of  their  birthright— all  these  were  torn  away  by  the  rudest  spoilers, 
carted  off,  they  knew  not  whither,  with  jeers  and  scoffs  and  ribald 
shoutings,  while  none  dared  raise  a  hand  or  let  his  voice  be  heard 
above  the  whisper  of  a  prayer  of  bitter  grief  and  agony. 

"One  class  was  spared.  The  clergy  of  this  Church  of  England  of 
ours  managed  to  retain  some  of  their  endowments ;  but  if  the  boy  king 
had  lived  another  three  years,  there  is  good  reason  for  believing  that 
these  too  would  have  gone." 

Graft  prevailed,  and  the  old  order  disappeared  in  a  slough  of  self- 
ishness. 

COMFORT  AND  POVERTY. 

A  number  of  friendly  critics  have  insisted  that  of  course  the 
Thirteenth  Century  was  far  behind  later  times  in  the  comfort  of  the 
people.  Poverty  is  supposed  to  have  been  almost  universal.  Doubt- 
less many  of  the  people  were  then  very  poor.  Personally,  I  doubt  if 
there  was  as  much  poverty,  that  is,  misery  due  to  actual  want  of 
necessaries  of  life,  as  there  is  at  the  present  time.  Certainly  it  was  not 
emphasized  by  having  close  to  it,  constantly  rendering  the  pains  of 
poverty  poignant  by  contrast,  the  luxury  of  the  modern  time.  They 
had  not  the  large  city,  and  people  in  the  country  do  not  suffer  as  much 
as  people  in  the  city.  In  recent  years,  investigations  of  poverty  in 
England  have  been  appalling  in  the  statistics  that  they  have  presented. 
Mr.  Robert  Hunter,  in  his  book  Poverty,  has  furnished  us  with  some 
details  that  make  one  feel  that  our  generation  should  be  the  last  to  say 


APPENDIX. 


473 


that  the  Thirteenth  Century  was  behind  in  progress,  because  so  many 
of  the  people  were  so  poor.  Ruskin  once  said  that  the  ideal  of  the 
great  nation  is  one  wherein  there  must  be  "as  many  as  possible  full- 
breathed,  bright-eyed  and  happy-hearted  human  creatures."  I  am 
sure  that,  tried  by  this  standard,  the  Thirteenth  Century  in  Merrie 
England  is  ahead  of  any  other  generation  and,  above  all,  far  in  advance 
of  our  recent  generations. 

By  contrast  to  what  we  know  of  the  merrie  English  men  and 
women  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  I  would  quote  Mr.  Hunter's  para- 
graphs on  the  Poverty  of  the  Modern  English  People.  He  says : 

"A  few  years  ago,  England  did  not  know  the  extent  of  her  own 
poverty.  Economists  and  writers  gave  opinions  of  all  kinds.  Some 
said  conditions  were  'bad,'  others  said  such  statements  were  mislead- 
ing; and  here  they  were,  tilting  at  each  other,  backward  and  forward,  in 
the  most  po-.derous  and  serious  way,  until  Mr.  Booth,  a  business  man, 
undertook  to  get  at  the  facts.  No  one,  even  the  most  radical  econo- 
mist, would  have  dared  to  have  estimated  the  povery  of  London  as 
extending  to  30  per  cent  of  the  people  (as  it  proved).  The  extent  of 
poverty— the  number  of  underfed,  underclothed  in  insanitary  houses — 
was  greater  than  could  reasonably  have  been  estimated." 

Some  of  the  details  of  this  investigation  by  Mr.  Booth  were  so 
startling  that  some  explanation  had  to  be  found.  They  could  not  deny, 
in  the  face  of  Mr.  Booth's  facts,  but  they  set  up  the  claim  that  the 
conditions  in  London  were  exceptional.  Then  Mr.  Rountree  made  an 
investigation  in  York  with  precisely  the  same  results.  More  than  one 
in  four  of  the  population  was  in  poverty.  To  quote  Mr.  Hunter  once 
more: 

"As  has  been  said,  it  was  not  until  Mr.  Charles  Booth  published, 
in  1891,  the  results  of  his  exhaustive  inquiries  that  the  actual  conditions 
of  poverty  in  London  became  known.  About  1,000,000  people,  or  about 
thirty  per  cent  of  the  entire  population  of  London,  were  found  to  be 
unable  to  obtain  the  necessaries  for  a  sound  livelihood.  They  were  in 
a  state  of  poverty,  living  in  conditions,  if  not  of  actual  misery,  at  any 
rate  bordering  upon  it.  In  many  districts,  considerably  more  than  half 
of  the  population  were  either  in  distress  or  on  the  verge  of  distress. 
When  these  results  were  made  public,  the  more  conservative  economists 
gave  it  as  their  opinion  that  the  conditions  in  London  were,  of  course, 
exceptional,  and  that  it  would  be  unsafe  to  make  any  generalizations 
for  the  whole  of  England  on  the  basis  of  Mr.  Booth's  figures  for  Lon-, 
don.  About  ten  years  later,  Mr.  B.  S.  Rountree,  incited  by  the  work 
of  Mr.  Booth,  undertook  a  similar  inquiry  in  his  native  town,  York,  a 
small  provincial  city,  in  most  ways  typical  of  the  smaller  towns  of 
England.  In  a  large  volume  in  which  the  results  are  published,  it  is 
shown  that  the  poverty  in  York  was  only  slightly  less  extensive  than 
that  of  London.  In  the  summary,  Mr.  Rountree  compares  the  condi- 
tions of  London  with  those  of  York.  His  comments  are  as  follows: 
'  The  proportions  arrived  at  for  the  total  populations  living  in  poverty  in 
London  and  York  respectively  were  as  under : 

London 30.7  per  cent 

York 27.84  per  cent 


474  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

The  proportion  of  the  population  living  in  poverty  in  York  may  be  re- 
garded as  practically  the  same  as  in  London,  especially  when  we 
remember  that  Mr.  Booth's  information  was  gathered  in  1887-1892,  a 
period  of  only  average  trade  prosperity,  whilst  the  York  figures  were 
collected  in  1899,  when  trade  was  unusually  prosperous.'  ' 

He  continues:  "We  have  been  accustomed  to  look  upon  the 
poverty  in  London  as  exceptional,  but  when  the  result  of  careful  inves- 
tigation shows  that  the  proportion  of  poverty  in  London  is  practically 
equalled  in  what  may  be  regarded  as  a  typical  provincial  town,  we  are 
faced  by  the  startling  probability  that  from  25  to  30  per  cent  of  the  town 
populations  of  the  United  Kingdom  are  living  in  poverty." 

Most  of  us  will  be  inclined  to  think  that  Mr.  Rountree  must  exag- 
gerate, and  what  he  calls  poverty  most  of  us  would  doubtless  be  in- 
clined to  think  a  modest  competency  a  little  below  respectability.  He 
fixed  the  standard  of  twenty-one  shillings  eight  pence  ($5.25)  a  week 
as  a  necessary  one  for  a  family  of  ordinary  size.  He  says : 

"A  family  living  upon  the  scale  allowed  for  in  this  estimate,  must 
never  spend  a  penny  on  railway  fare  or  omnibus.  They  must  never  go 
into  the  country  unless  they  walk.  They  must  never  purchase  a  half- 
penny newspaper  or  spend  a  penny  to  buy  a  ticket  for  a  popular  con- 
cert. They  must  write  no  letters  to  absent  children,  for  they  cannot 
afford  to  pay  the  postage.  They  must  never  contribute  anything  to 
their  church  or  chapel,  nor  give  any  help  to  a  neighbor  which  costs 
them  money.  They  cannot  save,  nor  can  they  join  sick  club  or  trade 
union,  because  they  cannot  pay  the  necessary  subscription.  The  chil- 
dren must  have  no  pocket  money  for  dolls,  marbles  or  sweets.  The 
father  must  smoke  no  tobacco  nor  drink  no  beer.  The  mother  must 
never  buy  any  pretty  clothes  for  herself  or  for  her  children,  the  char- 
acter for  the  family  wardrobe,  as  for  the  family  diet,  being  governed  by 
the  regulation,  'Nothing  must  be  bought  but  that  which  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  the  maintenance  of  physical  health,  and  that  which  is 
bought  must  be  of  the  plainest  and  most  economical  description.' 
Should  a  child  fall  ill,  it  must  be  attended  by  the  family  parish  doc- 
tor; should  it  die,  it  must  be  buried  by  the  parish.  Finally,  the  wage- 
earner  must  never  be  absent  from  his  work  for  a  single  day." 

More  than  one  in  four  of  the  population  living  below  this  scale! 

Conditions  are,  if  anything,  worse  on  the  Continent.  In  Germany, 
industry  is  at  the  best.  Conditions  in  Berlin  have  been  recently 
reported  in  the  Daily  Consular  Reports  by  a  U.  S.  Government  official. 
Of  the  somewhat  more  than  two  millions  of  people  who  live  in  Berlin, 
1,125,000  have  an  income.  Nearly  one-half  of  the  incomes,  however, 
are  exempt  from  taxation  because  they  do  not  amount  to  the  minimum 
taxable  income,  though  that  is  only  $214— $4  per  week.  Of  the  600,000 
who  have  taxable  incomes,  nearly  550,000  have  less  than  $700  a  year; 
that  is,  get  about  $2  a  day  or  less.  Less  than  sixty  thousand  out  of  the 
total  population  get  more  than  $2  a  day.  It  is  easy  to  say,  but  hard  to 
understand,  that  this  is  a  living  wage,  because  things  are  cheaper  in 
Germany.  Meat  is,  however,  nearly  twice  as  dear;  sugar  is  twice  as 
dear ;  bread  is  dearer  than  it  is  in  this  country ;  coffee  is  dearer ;  and 
only  rent  is  somewhat  cheaper. 


APPENDIX.  4?5 

It  is  easy  to  talk  about  the  spread  of  comfort  among  the  people  of 
our  generation  and  the  raising  of  the  standard  of  living,  but  if  one  com- 
pares these  wages  with  the  price  of  things  as  they  are  now,  it  is  hard  to 
understand  on  just  what  basis  of  fact  the  claim  for  betterment  in  our 
time,  meaning  more  general  comfort  and  happiness,  is  made. 

People  always  refuse  to  believe  that  conditions  are  as  bad  as  they 
really  are  in  these  matters.  Americans  will  at  once  have  the  feeling,  on 
reading  Mr.  Hunter  and  Mr.  Rountree's  words  and  the  account  of  the 
American  Consul  at  Berlin,  that  this  may  be  true  for  England  and 
Germany,  but  that  of  course  it  is  very  different  here  in  America.  It 
is  extremely  doubtful  whether  it  is  very  different  here  in  America.  In 
this  matter,  Mr.  Hunter's  opinion  deserves  weight.  He  has  for  years 
devoted  himself  to  gathering  information  with  regard  to  this  subject. 
He  seems  to  be  sure  that  one  in  seven  of  our  population  is  in  poverty. 
Probably  the  number  is  higher  than  this.  Here  is  his  opinion: 

"How  many  people  in  the  country  are  in  poverty?  Is  the  number 
yearly  growing  larger?  Are  there  each  year  more  and  more  of  the 
unskilled  classes  pursuing  hopelessly  the  elusive  phantom  of  self- 
support  and  independence?  Are  they,  as  in  a  dream,  working  faster, 
only  the  more  swiftly  to  move  backward?  Are  there  each  year  more  and 
more  hungry  children  and  more  and  more  fathers  whose  utmost  effort 
may  not  bring  into  the  home  as  much  energy  in  food  as  it  takes  out  in 
industry?  These  are  not  fanciful  questions,  nor  are  they  sentimental 
ones.  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  there  are  in  the  United  States 
ten  million  persons  in  precisely  these  conditions  of  poverty,  but  I  am 
largely  guessing,  and  there  may  be  as  many  as  fifteen  or  twenty  millions ! ' ' 

Perhaps  Mr.  Hunter  exaggerates.  As  a  physician,  I  should  be  in- 
clined to  think  not;  but  certainly  his  words  and,  above  all,  the  English 
statistics  will  give  any  one  pause  who  is  sure,  on  general  principles, 
that  the  great  mass  of  the  people  are  happier  now  or  more  comfortable, 
above  all,  in  mind — the  only  real  happiness — than  they  were  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century.  After  due  consideration  of  this  kind,  no  one  will 
insist  on  the  comparative  misery  and  suffering  of  the  poor  in  old  times. 
England  had  less  than  3,000,000  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  proba- 
bly there  was  never  a  time  in  her  history  when  a  greater  majority  of 
her  people  fulfilled  Ruskin's  and  Morris'  ideals  of  happy-hearted  human 
beings.  The  two-handed  worker  got  at  least  what  the  four-footed 
worker,  in  Carlyle's  words,  has  always  obtained,  due  food  and  lodging. 
England  was  not  "a  nation  with  sleek,  well-fed  English  horses,  and 
hungry,  dissatisfied  Englishmen." 


COMFORT  AND  HAPPINESS. 

There  is  another  side  to  the  question  of  comparative  happiness  that 
may  be  stated  in  the  words  of  William  Morris,  when  he  says,  in  "Hopes 
and  Fears  for  Art,"  that  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  of  the  luxurious  time 
of  course  a  fortioii  a  medieval  of  the  Thirteenth  Century)  would 


476  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

stare  astonished  could  he  be  brought  back  again  and  shown  the  com- 
forts of  a  well-to-do  middle-class  house.  This  expression  is  often  re- 
echoed, and  one  is  prone  to  wonder  how  many  of  those  who  use  it  real- 
ize that  it  is  a  quotation,  and,  above  all,  appreciate  the  fact  that  Morris 
made  the  statement  in  order  to  rebut  it.  His  answer  is  in  certain  ways 
so  complete  that  it  deserves  to  be  quoted. 

"When  you  hear  of  the  luxuries  of  the  Ancients,  you  must  re- 
member that  they  were  not  like  our  luxuries,  they  were  rather  indul- 
gence in  pieces  of  extravagant  folly  than  what  we  to-day  call  luxury — 
which,  perhaps,  you  would  rather  call  comfort;  well,  I  accept  the 
word,  and  say  that  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  of  the  luxurious  time  would, 
stare  astonished  could  he  be  brought  back  again  and  shown  the  com- 
forts of  a  well-to-do  middle-class  house. 

"  But  some,  I  know,  think  that  the  attainment  of  these  very  com- 
forts is  what  makes  the  difference  between  civilization  and  unciviliza- 
tion — that  they  are  the  essence  of  civilization.  Is  it  so  indeed?  Fare- 
well my  hope  then !  I  had  thought  that  civilization  meant  the  attainment 
of  peace  and  order  and  freedom,  of  good- will  between  man  and  man,  of 
the  love  of  truth  and  the  hatred  of  injustice,  and  by  consequence  the 
attainment  of  the  good  life  which  these  things  breed,  a  life  free  from 
craven  fear,  but  full  of  incident;  that  was  what  I  thought  it  meant,  not 
more  stuffed  chairs  and  more  cushions,  and  more  carpets  and  gas, 
and  more  dainty  meat  and  drink — and  therewithal  more  and  sharper 
differences  between  class  and  class. 

"  If  that  be  what  it  is,  I  for  my  part  wish  I  were  well  out  of  it  and  liv- 
ing in  a  tent  in  the  Persian  desert,  or  a  turf  hut  on  the  Iceland  hillside. 
But,  however  it  be,  and  I  think  my  view  is  the  true  view,  I  tell  you 
that  art  abhors  that  side  of  civilization ;  she  cannot  breath  in  the  houses 
that  lie  under  its  stuffy  slavery. 

"  Believe  me,  if  we  want  art  to  begin  at  home,  as  it  must,  we  must 
clear  our  houses  of  troublesome  superfluities  that  are  forever  in  our 
way,  conventional  comforts  that  are  no  real  comforts,  and  do  but  make 
work  for  servants  and  doctors.  If  you  want  a  golden  rule  that  will  fit 
everybody,  this  is  it :  '  Have  nothing  in  your  houses  that  you  do  not 
know  to  be  useful  or  believe  to  be  beautiful." 

COMFORT  AND  HEALTH. 

A  comment  on  William  Morris's  significant  paragraphs  may  be 
summed  up  in  some  reflections  on  the  scornful  expression  of  a  friend 
who  asked,  how  is  it  possible  to  talk  of  happiness  at  a  time  when  there 
were  no  glass  in  windows  and  no  heating  apparatus  except  the  open 
fireplace  in  the  great  hall  of  the  larger  houses,  or  in  the  kitchen  of  the 
dwelling  houses.  To  this  there  is  the  ready  answer  that,  in  the  modern 
time,  we  have  gone  so  far  to  the  opposite  extreme  as  to  work  serious 
harm  to  health.  When  a  city  dweller  develops  tuberculosis,  his  physi- 
cian now  sends  him  out  to  the  mountains,  asks  him  to  sleep  with  his 
window  wide  open,  and  requires  him  to  spend  just  as  much  of  his  time 
as  possible  in  the  open  air,  even  with  the  temperature  below  zero.  In 
our  hospitals,  the  fad  for  making  patients  comfortable  by  artificial 
heat  is  passing,  and  that  of  stimulating  them  by  cold,  fresh  air  is  gain- 
ing ground.  We  know  that,  for  all  the  fevers  and  all  the  respiratory 


APPENDIX.  477 

diseases  this  brings  about  a  notable  reduction  in  the  mortality.  Surely, 
what  is  good  for  the  ailing  must  be  even  better  to  keep  them  well  from 
disease.  Many  a  physician  now  arranges  to  sleep  out  of  doors  all  win- 
ter. Certainly  all  the  respiratory  diseases  are  rendered  much  more 
fatal  and  modern  liability  to  them  greatly  increased  by  our  shut -up 
houses.  The  medieval  people  were  less  comfortable,  from  a  sensual 
standpoint,  but  the  healthy  glow  and  reaction  after  cold  probably  made 
them  enjoy  life  better  than  we  do  in  our  steam-heated  houses.  They 
secured  bodily  warmth  by  an  active  circulation  of  their  blood.  We 
secure  it  by  the  circulation  of  hot  water  or  steam  in  our  houses.  Ours 
may  be  the  better  way,  but  the  question  is  not  yet  absolutely  decided. 
A  physician  friend  points  to  the  great  reduction  in  the  death -rate  in 
modern  times,  and  insists  that  this,  of  course,  means  definite  progress. 
Even  this  is  not  quite  so  sure  as  is  often  thought.  We  are  saving  a 
great  many  lives  that  heretofore,  in  the  course  of  nature,  under  con- 
ditions requiring  a  more  vigorous  life,  passed  out  of  existence  early.  It 
is  doubtful,  however,  whether  this  is  an  advantage  for  the  race,  since 
our  insane  asylums,  our  hospitals  for  incurables  and  our  homes  of 
various  kinds  now  have  inmates  in  much  greater  proportion  to  the 
population  than  ever  before  in  history.  These  are  mainly  individuals 
of  lower  resistive  vitality,  who  would  have  been  allowed  to  get  out  of 
existence  early,  save  themselves  and  their  friends  from  useless  suffering, 
and  whose  presence  in  life  does  not  add  greatly  if  at  all  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  human  accomplishment.  Our  reduced  death-rate  is,  because 
of  comfort  seeking,  more  than  counterbalanced  by  a  reduced  birth-rate, 
so  that  no  advantage  is  reaped  for  the  race  in  the  end.  These  reflec- 
tions, of  course,  are  only  meant  to  suggest  how  important  it  is  to  view 
such  questions  from  all  sides  before  being  sure  that  they  represent  def- 
inite progress  for  humanity.  Progress  is  much  more  elusive  than  is 
ordinarily  thought,  and  is  never  the  simple,  unmistakable  movement 
of  advance  it  is  often  thought. 


HYGIENE. 

The  objection  that  medical  friends  have  had  to  the  claims  of  The 
Thirteenth  as  the  Greatest  of  Centuries  is  that  it  failed  to  pay  any 
attention  to  hygiene.  Here,  once  more,  we  have  a  presumption  that  is 
not  founded  on  real  knowledge  of  the  time.  It  is  rather  easy  to  show 
that  these  generations  were  anticipating  many  of  our  solutions  of 
hygienic  problems  quite  as  well  as  our  solutions  of  other  social  and 
intellectual  difficulties.  In  the  sketch  of  Pope'John  XXI.,  the  physician 
who  became  Pope  during  the  second  half  of  the  Thirteenth  Century, 
which  was  published  in  Ophthalmology,  a  quarterly  review  of  eye 
diseases  (Jan.,  1909),  because  Pope  John  wrote  a  little  book  on  this 
subject  which  has  many  valuable  anticipations  of  modern  knowledge,  I 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that,  while  a  physician  and  professor  of  medi- 


478  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

cine  at  the  medical  school  of  the  University  of  Sienna,  this  Pope,  then 
known  as  Peter  of  Spain,  had  made  some  contributions  to  sanitary 
science.  I/ater  he  was  oppointed  Archiater,  that  is,  Physician  in  charge 
of  the  City  of  Rome.  As  pointed  out  in  the  sketch  of  him  as  enlarged 
for  the  volume  containing  a  second  series  of  Catholic  Churchmen  in 
Science  (The  Dolphin  Press,  Phila.,  1909),  he  seemsto  have  been  partic- 
ularly interested  in  popular  health,  for  we  have  a  little  book,  Thesaurus 
Pauperum — The  Treasure  of  the  Poor — which  contains  many  directions 
for  the  maintenance  of  health  and  the  treatment  of  disease  by  those 
who  are  too  poor  to  secure  physicians'  advice.  The  fact  that  the  head 
of  the  Bureau  of  Health  in  Rome  should  have  been  made  Pope  in  the 
Thirteenth  Century,  itself  speaks  volumes  for  the  awakening  of  the 
educated  classes  at  least  to  the  value  of  hygiene  and  sanitation. 

Their  attention  to  hygiene  can  be  best  shown  by  a  consideration  of 
the  hospitals.  Ordinarily  it  is  assumed  that  the  hospitals  provided  a 
roof  for  the  sick  and  the  injured,  but  scarcely  more.  Most  physicians 
will  probably  be  quite  sure  that  they  were  rather  hot -beds  of  disease 
than  real  blessings  to  the  ailing.  That  is  not  what  we  find  when  we 
study  them  carefully.  These  generations  gave  us  a  precious  lesson  by 
eradicating  leprosy,  which  was  quite  as  general  as  tuberculosis  is  now, 
and  they  made  special  hospitals  for  erysipelas,  which  materially 
lessened  the  diffusion  of  that  disease.  In  rewriting  the  chapter  on  The 
Foundation  of  City  Hospitals  for  my  book,  The  Popes  and  Science 
(Fordham  University  Press,  N.  Y.,  1908),  I  incorporated  into  it  a 
description  of  the  hospital  erected  at  Tanierre,  in  France,  in  1293,  by 
Marguerite  of  Bourgogne,  the  sister  of  St.  Louis.  Of  this  hospital  Mr. 
Arthur  Dillon,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  modern  architect,  says: 

"  It  was  an  admirable  hospital  in  every  way,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  we 
to-day  surpass  it.  It  was  isolated,  the  ward  was  separated  from  the 
other  buildings;  it  had  the  advantage  we  often  lose,  of  being  but  one 
story  high,  and  more  space  was  given  to  each  patient  than  we  now 
afford. 

"  The  ventilation  by  the  great  windows  and  ventilators  in  the  ceiling 
was  excellent;  it  was  cheerfully  lighted,  and  the  arrangement  of  the 
gallery  shielded  the  patients  from  dazzling  light  and  from  draughts 
from  the  windows,  and  afforded  an  easy  means  of  supervision,  while  the 
division  by  the  roofless,  low  partitions  isolated  the  sick  and  obviated 
the  depression  that  comes  from  the  sight  of  others  in  pain. 

"  It  was,  moreover,  in  great  contrast  to  the  cheerless  white  wards  of 
to-day.  The  vaulted  ceiling  was  very  beautiful;  the  woodwork  was 
richly  carved,  and  the  great  windows  over  the  altars  were  filled  with 
colored  glass.  Altogether,  it  was  one  of  the  best  examples  of  the  best 
period  of  Gothic  architecture." 

In  their  individual  Hygiene  there  was,  of  course,  much  to  be  desired 
among  the  people  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  it  has  been  declared 
that  the  history  of  Europe  from  the  fifth  to  the  fifteenth  century  might, 
from  the  hygienic  standpoint,  he  summed  up  as  a  thousand  years  with- 
out a  bath.  The  more  we  know  about  this  period,  however,  the  less  of 


APPENDIX.  4:0 

point  do  we  find  in  the  epigram.  Mr.  Cram,  in  the  Ruined  Abbeys  of 
Great  Britain  (Pott  &  Co.,  N.  Y.,  1907),  has  described  wonderful 
arrangements  within  the  monasteries  (!)  for  the  conduction  of  water 
from  long  distances  for  all  toilet  purposes.  There  was  much  more 
attention  to  sanitary  details  than  we  have  been  prone  to  think.  Mr. 
Cram,  in  describing  what  was  by  no  means  one  of  the  greatest  of  the 
English  abbeys  of  the  Thirteenth  Century,  says : 

"Here  at  Beaulieu  the  water  was  brought  by  an  underground 
conduit  from  an  unfailing  spring  a  mile  away,  and  this  served  for 
drinking,  washing  and  bathing,  the  supply  of  the  fish  ponds,  and  for  a 
constant  flushing  of  the  elaborate  system  of  drainage.  In  sanitary 
matters,  the  monks  were  as  far  in  advance  of  the  rest  of  society  as  they 
were  in  learning  and  agriculture." 


WAGES  AND  THE  CONDITION  OF  WORKING  PEOPLE. 

What  every  reader  of  the  Thirteenth  Century  seems  to  be  perfectly 
sure  of  is  that,  whatever  else  there  may  have  been  in  this  precious 
time,  at  least  the  workmen  were  not  well  paid  and  men  worked  prac- 
tically for  nothing.  It  is  confessed  that,  of  course,  working-  as  they 
did  on  their  cathedrals,  they  had  a  right  to  work  for  very  little  if  they 
wished,  but  at  least  there  has  been  a  decided  step  upward  in  evolution 
in  the  gradual  raising  of  wages,  until  at  last  the  workman  is  beginning 
to  be  paid  some  adequate  compensation.  There  is  probably  no  phase 
of  the  life  of  the  Middle  Ages  with  regard  to  which  people  are  more 
mistaken  than  this  supposition  that  the  workmen  of  this  early  time 
were  paid  inadequately.  I  have  already  called  attention  to  the  fact  that 
the  workmen  of  this  period  claimed  and  obtained  ' '  the  three  eights ' ' 
—eight  hours  of  work,  eight  hours  of  sleep  and  eight  hours  for  recrea- 
tion and  bodily  necessities.  They  obtained  the  Saturday  half-holiday, 
and  also  release  from  work  on  the  vigils  of  all  feast  days,  and  there 
were  nearly  forty  of  these  in  the  year.  After  the  vesper  hour,  that  is, 
three  in  Summer  and  two  in  Winter,  there  was  no  work  on  the  Eves  of 
Holy-days  of  Obligation.  With  regard  to  wages,  there  is  just  one  way 
to  get  at  the  subject,  and  that  is,  to  present  the  legal  table  of  wages 
enacted  by  Parliament,  placing  beside  it  the  legal  maximum  price  of 
necessities  of  life,  as  also  determined  by  Parliamentary  enactment. 

An  Act  of  Edward  III.  fixes  the  wages,  without  food,  as  follows. 
There  are  many  other  things  mentioned,  but  the  following  will  be 
enough  for  our  purpose : 

s.  d. 

A  woman  hay-making,  or  weeding  corn  for  the  day 0  1 

A  man  filling  dung-cart 0  3)4 

A  reaper 0  4 

Mowing  an  acre  of  grass 0 

Threshing  a  quarter  of  wheat 0  4 


480  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

The  price  of  shoes,  cloth  and  provisions,  throughout  the  time  that 
this  law  continued  in  force,  was  as  follows: 

£.  s.  d. 

A  pair  of  shoes 0  0  4 

Russet  broadcloth,  the  yard 0  1  1 

A  stall  fed  ox 1  4  0 

A  grass  fed  ox 0  16  0 

A  fat  sheep  unshorn 0  1  8 

A  fat  sheep  shorn 0  1  2 

A  fat  hog  two  years  old 0  3  4 

A  fat  goose 0  0  2^ 

Ale,  the  gallon,  by  proclamation 0  0  1 

Wheat,  the  quarter 0  3  4 

White  wine,  the  gallon 0  0  6 

Red  wine 0  0  4 

An  Act  of  Parliament  of  the  fourteenth  century,  in  fixing  the  price  of 
meat,  names  the  four  sorts  of  meat— beef,  pork,  mutton  and  veal,  and 
sets  forth  in  its  preamble  the  words,  "these  being  the  food  of  the 
poorer  sort."  The  poor  in  England  do  not  eat  these  kinds  of  meat 
now,  and  the  investigators  of  the  poverty  of  the  country  declare  that  most 
of  the  poor  live  almost  exclusively  on  bread.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is, 
that  large  city  populations  are  likely  to  harbor  many  very  miserable 
people,  while  the  rural  population  of  England  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
containing  the  bulk  of  the  people,  were  happy-hearted  and  merry. 
When  we  recall  this  in  connection  with  what  I  have  given  in  the  text 
with  regard  to  the  trades-unions  and  their  care  for  the  people,  the 
foolish  notion,  founded  on  a  mere  assumption  and  due  to  that  Aris- 
tophanic  joke,  our  complacent  self-sufficiency,  which  makes  us  so  ready 
to  believe  that  our  generation  must  be  better  off  than  others  were, 
vanishes  completely. 

It  is  easy  to  understand  that  beef,  pork,  mutton,  veal  and  even 
poultry  were  the  food  of  the  poor,  when  a  workman  could  earn  the  price1 
of  a  sheep  in  less  than  four  days  or  buy  nearly  two  fat  geese  for  his 
day's  wages.  A  day  laborer  will  work  from  forty  to  fifty  days  now  to 
earn  the  price  of  an  ox  on  the  hoof,  and  it  was  about  the  same  at  the 
close  of  the  Thirteenth  Century.  When  a  fat  hog  costs  less  than  a  dol- 
lar, a  man's  wages,  at  eight  cents  a  day,  are  not  too  low.  When  a  gal- 
lon of  good  ale  can  be  obtained  for  two  cents,  no  workman  is  likely  to  go 
dry.  When  a  gallon  of  red  wine  can  be  obtained  for  a  day's  wages,  it  is 
hard  to  see  any  difference  between  a  workman  of  the  olden  time  and  the 
present  in  this  regard.  Two  yards  of  cloth  made  a  coat  for  a  gentle- 
man and  cost  only  a  little  over  two  shillings.  The  making  of  it 
brought  the  price  of  it  up  to  two  shilling  and  six  pence.  These  prices 
are  taken  from  the  Preciosum  of  Bishop  Fleetwood,  who  took  them 
from  the  accounts  kept  by  the  bursars  of  convents.  Fleetwood's  book 
is  accepted  very  generally  as  an  excellent  authority  in  the  history  of 
economics. 


APPENDIX.  481 

Cobbett,  in  his  History  of  the  Protestant  Reformation,  has  made  an 
exhaustive  study  of  just  this  question  of  the  material  and  economic 
condition  of  the  people  of  England  before  and  since  the  reformation. 
He  says: 

"These  things  prove,  beyond  all  dispute,  that  England  was,  in 
Catholic  times,  a  real  wealthy  country;  that  wealth  was  generally 
diffused;  that  every  part  of  the  country  abounded  in  men  of  solid 

Eroperty;  and  that,  of  course,  there  were  always  great  resources  at 
and  in  cases  of  emergency." "In  short,  everything  shows  that 

England  was  then  a  country  abounding  in  men  of  real  wealth." 

Fortesque,  the  Lord  High  Chancellor  of  England  under  Henry  VI., 
king  a  century  after  the  Thirteenth,  has  this  to  say  with  regard  to  the 
legal  and  economic  conditions  in  England  in  his  time.  Some  people 
may  think  the  picture  he  gives  an  exaggeration,  but  it  was  written  by 
a  great  lawyer  with  the  definite  idea  of  giving  a  picture  of  the  times, 
and,  under  ordinary  circumstances,  we  would  say  that  there  could  be 
no  better  authority. 

"The  King  of  England  cannot  alter  the  laws,  or  make  new  ones, 
without  the  express  consent  of  the  whole  kingdom  in  Parliament 
assembled.  Every  inhabitant  is  at  his  liberty  fully  to  use  and  enjoy 
whatever  his  farm  produceth,  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  the  increase  of 
his  flock  and  the  like— all  the  improvements  he  makes,  whether  by  his 
own  proper  industry  or  of  those  he  retains  in  his  service,  are  his  own, 
to  use  and  enjoy,  without  the  let,  interruption  or  denial  of  any.  If  he 
be  in  any  wise  injured  or  oppressed,  he  shall  have  his  amends  and  satis- 
factions against  the  party  offending.  Hence  it  is  that  the  inhabitants 
are  rich  in  gold,  silver,  and  in  all  th.2  necessaries  and  conveniences  of 
life.  They  drink  no  water  unless  at  certain  times,  upon  a  religious 
score,  and  by  way  of  doing  penance.  They  are  fed  in  great  abundance, 
with  all  sorts  of  flesh  and  fish,  of  which  they  have  plenty  everywhere; 
they  are  clothed  throughout  in  good  woollens,  their  bedding  and  other 
furniture  in  the  house  are  of  wool,  and  that  in  great  store.  They  are 
also  well  provided  with  all  sorts  of  household  goods  and  necessary  imple- 
ments for  husbandry.  Every  one,  according  to  his  rank,  hath  all  things 
which  conduce  to  make  mind  and  life  easy  and  happy, " 


INTEREST  AND  LOANS. 

A  number  of  commercial  friends  have  been  interested  in  the  won- 
derful story  of  business  organizations  traced  in  the  chapter  on  Great 
Beginnings  of  Modern  Commerce.  They  have  all  been  sure,  however, 
that  it  is  quite  idle  to  talk  of  great  commercial  possibilities  at  a  time 
when  ecclesiastical  regulations  forbade  the  taking  of  interest.  This 
would  seem  to  make  it  quite  impossible  that  great  commercial  transac- 
tions could  be  carried  on,  yet  somehow  these  people  succeeded  in  accom- 
plishing them.  A  number  of  writers  on  economics  in  recent  year  shave 
suggested  that  possibly  one  solution  of  the  danger  to  government  and 
popular  rights  from  the  accumulation  of  large  fortunes  might  be  avoided 
by  a  return  to  the  system  of  prohibition  of  interest  taking.  There  is 


482  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

much  more  in  that  proposition  than  might  possibly  be  thought  by  those 
who  are  unfamiliar  with  it  from  serious  consideration.  They  did 
succeed  in  getting  on  without  it  in  the  Thirteenth  Century,  and  at  the 
same  time  they  solved  the  other  problem  of  providing  loans,  not  alone 
for  business  people,  but  for  all  those  who  might  need  them.  We  are 
solving  the  ' '  loan  shark ' '  evil  at  the  present  time  in  nearly  the  same 
way  that  they  solved  it  seven  centuries  ago.  Abbot  Gasquet,  in  his 
"Parish  Life  in  England  Before  the  Reformation,"  describes  the 
methods  of  the  early  days  as  follows : 

' '  The  parish  wardens  had  their  duties  towards  the  poorer  members 
of  the  district.  In  more  than  one  instance  they  were  guardians  of  the 
common  chest,  out  of  which  temporary  loans  could  be  obtained  by  needy 
parishioners,  to  tide  over  persons  in  difficulties.  These  loans  were  se- 
cured by  pledges  and  the  additional  security  of  other  parishioners.  No 
interest  was  charged  for  the  use  of  the  money,  and  in  case  the  pledge 
had  to  be  sold,  everything  over  and  above  the  sum  lent  was  returned  to 
the  borrower." 


THE  EIGHTEENTH  LOWEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  the  nineteenth  century,  and  especially  the 
latter  half  of  it,  saw  some  very  satisfactory  progress  over  immediately 
preceding  times.  With  the  recognition  of  this  fact,  that  the  last  cen- 
tury so  far  surpassed  its  predecessor  there  has  been  a  tendency  to 
assume,  because  evolution  occupies  men's  minds,  that  the  eighteenth 
must  have  quite  as  far  surpassed  the  seventeenth,  and  the  seventeenth 
the  sixteenth,  and  so  on,  so  that  of  course  we  are  far  ahead  in  every- 
thing of  the  despised  Middle  Ages.  In  recent  years,  indeed,  we  have 
dropped  the  attitude  of  blaming  the  earlier  ages,  for  one  of  complacent 
pity  that  they  were  not  born  soon  enough,  and,  therefore,  could  not 
enjoy  our  advantages.  Unfortunately  for  any  such  conclusion  as  this,  the 
term  of  comparison  nearest  to  us,  the  eighteenth  century  is  without 
doubt  the  lowest  hundred  years  in  human  accomplishment,  at  least 
during  the  past  seven  centuries. 

This  is  true  for  every  form  of  human  endeavor  and  every  phase  of 
human  existence.  Prof.  Goodyear,  of  the  Brooklyn  Institute  of  Arts 
and  Science,  the  well-known  author  of  a  series  of  books  on  art  and 
history,  in  one  of  the  chapters  of  his  Handbook  on  Renaissance  and 
Modern  Art  (New  York,  The  McMillan  Co.),  in  describing  the  Greek 
revival  of  the  latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century  says :  ' '  According  to 
our  accounts  so  far  throughout  this  whole  book,  either  of  architecture, 
painting,  or  sculpture,  it  will  appear  that  the  earlier  nineteenth  century 
represents  the  foot  of  a  hill,  whose  gradual  descent  began  about  1530.  " 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  every  department  of  artistic  expression  the  taste 
of  the  eighteenth  century  was  almost  the  worst  possible.  The  monu- 
ments that  we  have  from  that  time,  in  the  shape  of  churches  and 
municipal  buildings,  are  few,  but  such  as  they  are,  they  are  the  least 


APPENDIX.  483 

worthy  of  imitation,  and  the  'art  ideas  they  represent  are  most  to  be 
deprecated  of  any  in  the  whole  history  of  modern  art. 

Perhaps  the  most  awful  arraignment  of  the  eighteenth  and  early 
nineteenth  century  that  was  ever  made  is  that  of  Mr.  Cram,  in  the 
Ruined  Abbeys  of  Great  Britain,  from  which  I  have  already  quoted. 
He  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that,  during  this  century,  some  of  the 
most  beautiful  sculptured  work  that  ever  came  from  the  hand  of  man 
was  torn  out  of  the  ruins  of  St.  Mary's  Abbey,  York,  to  serve  no  better 
purpose  than  to  make  lime.  His  description  of  the  sculpture  of  the 
Abbey  will  give  some  idea  of  its  beauty  and  render  all  the  more  poig- 
nant the  loss  that  was  thus  inflicted  on  art.  He  says: 

"Most  wonderful  of  all  amongst  a  horde  of  smaller  statues,  a 
mutilated  fragment  of  a  statue  of  Our  Lady  and  the  Holy  Child,  so 
consummate  in  its  faultless  art  that  it  deserves  a  place  with  the  master- 
pieces of  sculpture  of  every  age  and  race.  Here  in  this  dim  and  scanty 
undercraft  is  an  epitome  of  the  English  art  of  four  centuries,  precious 
and  beautiful  beyond  the  power  of  words  to  describe. 

"York  Abbey  was  a  national  monument,  the  aesthetic  and  historic 
value  of  which  was  beyond  computation.  It  is  with  feelings  of  horror 
and  unutterable  dismay  that,  as  we  stand  beside  the  few  existing  frag- 
ments, realizing  the  irreparable  loss  they  make  so  clear,  we  call  into 
mind  Henry's  sacrilege  in  the  sixteenth  century,  and  his  silly  palace 
doomed  to  instant  destruction,  and  the  crass  ignorance  and  stolidity 
of  the  eighteenth  century  with  its  grants  of  building  material,  and 
the  mercenary  savagery  of  the  nineteenth  century  when,  from  smoking 
lime  kilns  rose  into  the  air  the  vanishing  ghosts  of  the  noblest  creations 
that  owed  their  existence  to  man. 

"Nothing  is  sadder  to  realize  than  the  failure  of  appreciation  for  art 
of  the  early  nineteenth  and  the  eighteenth  century.  Men  had  lost, 
apparently,  all  proper  realization  of  the  value  of  artistic  effort  and 
achievement.  It  was  an  era  of  travel  and  commerce  and,  unfortunately, 
of  industrial  development.  As  a  consequence,  in  many  parts  of  Europe, 
and  especially  of  England,  art  remains  of  inestimable  value  suffered  at 
the  hands  of  utilitarians  who  found  them  of  use  in  their  enterprises. 
We  are  accustomed  to  rail  against  the  barbarians  and  the  Turks  for 
their  failure  to  appreciate  the  remains  of  Latin  and  Greek  art  and  for 
their  wanton  destruction  of  them,  but  what  shall  we  say  of  modern 
Englishmen,  who  quite  as  ruthlessly  destroyed  objects  of  art  of  equal 
value  at  least  with  Roman  and  Greek,  while  the  great  body  of  the 
nation  made  no  complaint,  and  no  protest  was  heard  anywhere  in  the 
kingdom." 

What  is  so  true  of  the  arts  is,  as  might  be  reasonably  expected, 
quite  as  true  of  other  phases  of  intellectual  development.  Education, 
for  instance,  is  at  the  lowest  ebb  that  it  has  reached  since  the  foun- 
dation of  the  Universities  at  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century.  In  Ger- 
many, there  was  only  one  university,  that  of  Gottingen,  in  which  there 
was  a  professorship  of  Greek.  When  Winckelmann  introduced  the 
study  of  Greek  into»his  school  at  Seehausen,  no  school-books  for  this 
language  were  available,  and  he  was  obliged  to  write  out  texts  for  his 
students.  What  was  the  case  in  Germany  was  also  true,  to  a  great 


484  GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 

degree,  of  the  rest  of  Europe.  Leading  French  critics  ridiculed  the 
Greek  authors.  Homer  was  considered  a  ballad  singer  and  compared 
to  the  street  singers  of  Paris.  Voltaire  thought  that  the  ^Bneid  of  Virgil 
was  superior  to  all  that  the  Greek  writers  had  ever  done.  No  edition 
of  Plato  had  been  published  in  Europe  since  the  end  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Other  Greek  authors  were  almost  as  much  neglected,  and  of 
true  scholarship  there  was  very  little.  When  Cardinal  Newman,  in  his 
Idea  of  a  University,  wants  to  find  the  lowest  possible  term  of  com- 
parison for  the  intellectual  life  of  the  university,  he  takes  the  English 
universities  of  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

With  this  neglect  of  education,  and  above  all  of  the  influence  that 
Greek  has  always  had  in  chastening  and  perfecting  taste,  it  is  not  sur- 
prising that  literature  was  in  every  country  of  Europe  at  a  very  low  ebb. 
It  was  not  so  feeble  as  art,  but  the  two  are  interdependent,  much  more 
than  is  usually  thought.  Only  France  has  anything  to  show  in  litera- 
ture that  has  had  an  enduring  influence  in  the  subsequent  centuries. 
When  we  compare  the  French  literature  of  the  eighteenth  with  that  of 
the  seventeenth  century,  however,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  much  of  a  de- 
scent there  has  been  from  Corneille,  Racine,  Moliere,  Boileau,  La  Fon- 
taine, Bossuet,  Bourdaloue,  and  Fe*nelon  to  Voltaire,  Marivaux,  Lesage, 
Diderot,  and  Bernardin  de  St.  Pierre.  This  same  decadence  of  litera- 
ture can  be  noted  even  more  strikingly  in  England,  in  Spain,  and  in 
Italy.  The  seventeenth,  especially  the  first  half  of  it,  saw  the  origin 
of  some  of  the  greatest  works  of  modern  literature.  The  eighteenth 
century  produced  practically  nothing  that  was  to  live  and  be  a  vital 
force  in  after  times. 

What  is  true  in  art,  letters  and  education  is,  above  all,  true  in  what 
men  did  for  liberty  and  for  their  fellow -men.  Hospital  organization 
and  the  care  of  the  ailing  was  at  its  lowest  ebb  during  the  eighteenth 
century.  Jacobson,  the  German  historian  of  the  hospitals,  says; 1 

11  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  attention  to  the  well-being  of  the  sick, 
improvements  in  hospitals  an'd  institutions  generally  and  to  details  of 
nursing  care,  had  a  period  of  complete  and  lasting  stagnation  after  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  or  from  the  close  of  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  Neither  officials  nor  physicians  took  any  interest  in  the 
elevation  of  nursing  or  improving  the  conditions  of  hospitals.  During 
the  first  two -thirds  of  the  eighteenth  century,  nothing  was  done  to 
bring  either  construction  or  nursing  to  a  better  state.  Solely  among 
the  religious  orders  did  nursing  remain  an  interest,  and  some  remnants 
of  technique  survive.  The  result  was  that,  in  this  period,  the  general 
level  of  nursing  fell  far  below  that  of  earlier  periods.  The  hospitals  of 
cities  were  like  prisons,  with  bare,  undecorated  walls  and  little  dark 
rooms,  small  windows  where  no  sun  could  enter,  and  dismal  wards 
where  fifty  or  one  hundred  patients  were  crowded  together,  deprived  of 
all  comforts  and  even  of  necessaries.  In  the  municipal  and  state  in- 
stitutions of  this  period,  the  beautiful  gardens,  roomy  halls,  and 

iBeitragezur  Geschichte  des  Krankencomforts.    Deutsche  Krankenpflege  Zeitung, 
1898,  in  4  parts. 


APPENDIX.  485 

springs  of  water  of  the  old  cloister  hospital  of  the  Middle  Ages  were 
not  heard  of,  still  less  the  comforts  of  their  friendly  interiors." 

As  might  be  expected,  with  the  hospitals  so  badly  organized,  the 
art  of  nursing  was  in  a  decay  that  is  almost  unutterable.  Miss  Nutt- 
ing, of  Johns  Hopkins  Hospital,  the  Superintendent  of  Nurses,  and 
Miss  Dock,  the  Secretary  of  the  International  Council  of  Nurses,  have 
in  their  History  of  Nursing  a  chapter  on  the  Dark  Period  of  Nursing, 
in  which  the  decadence  of  the  eighteenth  century,  in  what  regards  the 
training  of  nurses  for  the  intelligent  care  of  the  sick,  is  brought  out 
very  clearly.  They  say:  1 

"It  is  commonly  agreed  that  the  darkest  known  period  in  the  his- 
tory of  nursing  was  that  from  the  latter  part  of  the  seventeenth  up  to  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century.  During  the  time,  the  condition 
of  the  nursing  art,  the  well-being  of  the  patient,  and  the  status  of  the 
nurse,  all  sank  to  an  indescribable  level  of  degradation.  " 

Taine,  in  his  History  of  the  Old  Regime"  of  France,  has  told  the  awful 
story  of  the  attitude  of  the  so-called  better  classes  toward  the  poor.  While 
conditions  were  at  their  worst  in  France,  every  country  in  Europe  saw 
something  of  the  same  thing.  In  certain  parts  of  Germany  conditions 
were,  if  possible,  worse.  It  is  no  wonder  that  the  French  Revolution 
came  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  that  a  series  of  further 
revolutions  during  the  nineteenth  century  were  required  to  win  back 
some  of  the  rights  which  men  had  gained  for  themselves  in  earlier  cen- 
turies and  then  lost,  sinking  into  a  state  of  decadence  out  of  which 
we  are  only  emerging,  though  in  most  countries  we  have  not  reached 
quite  the  level  of  human  liberty  and,  above  all,  of  Christian  democracy 
that  our  forefathers  had  secured  seven  centuries  ago. 

With  these  considerations  in  mind,  it  is  easier  to  understand  how 
men  in  the  later  nineteenth  century  and  beginning  twentieth  century 
are  prone  to  think  of  their  periods  as  representing  an  acme  in  the  course 
of  progress.  There  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  far  above  the  eighteenth 
century.  That,  however,  was  a  deep  valley  in  human  accomplishment, 
indeed,  a  veritable  slough  of  despond,  out  of  which  we  climbed;  and, 
looking  back,  are  prone  to  think  how  fortunate  we  are  in  having  as- 
cended so  high,  though  beyond  our  vision  on  the  other  side  of  the  valley 
the  hills  rise  much  higher  into  the  clouds  of  human  aspiration  and 
artistic  excellence  than  anything  that  we  have  attained  as  yet.  Indeed, 
whenever  we  try  to  do  serious  work  at  the  present  time,  we  confessedly 
go  back  from  four  to  seven  centuries  for  the  models  that  we  must  follow. 
With  Renaissance  art  and  Gothic  architecture  and  the  literature  before 
the  end  of  the  sixteenth  century  cut  out  of  our  purview,  we  would  have 
nothing  to  look  to  for  models.  This  phase  of  history  needs  to  be  recalled 
by  all  those  who  would  approach  with  equanimity  the  consideration  of 
The  Thirteenth  as  the  Greatest  of  Centuries. 

1 A  History  of  Nursing,  by  M.  Adelaide  Nutting  and  Lavinia  L.  Dock,  in  two  vol. 
umes,  illustrated.    G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York,  1907. 


486 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


INDEX. 


A. 

Abbey   schools,   26;   of   St.    Victor,    150 

Aberration    of   light,    44 

Abingdon,    Edmund    of,    327 

Adam    of    St.    Victor,    204 

Age  of  Students,  25-63 

Albertus    Magnus,     46 

Alchemies,    93 

Alfonso    the    Wise,    2 

Aliens'    rights,    358 

Allbutt,     Prof.,     83 

Amiens,    105 

Andrew     II,    Golden    Bull,    369 

Angel    Choir,    13-108 

Angelo    on    Dante,    305 

Anselm,   80 

Antipodes,  50,  392 

Ants    in    Dante.    314 

Appreciation    of   art,    146 

Aquinas,  38;  and  Albertus,  271;  ap- 
preciation of,  283 ;  capacity  for 
work,  286 ;  education,  270 ;  on 
Existence  of  God,  276 ;  'on  liber, 
ty  and  society,  279;.  at  Paris,  272; 
as  a  poet,  287 ;  and  Pope  Leo 
XIII,  274;  on  Resurrection,  278; 
tributes  to,  281 

Arbitration,    382 

Arena   Padua,    144 

Arezzo,    23 

Arnaud,   Daniel,    189 

Arnaud  de  Marveil,    189 

Arnold,    Matthew,    and    Francis,    256 

Art  and  the  Friars,    139 

Artemus    Ward,    52 

Arts  and  Crafts,   124 

Arthur  Legends,   10,    173 

Arundel,  Countess  of,  320 

Asbestos,    398   • 

Ascoli,    Cope,    14,    134 

Assisi,    144 

Assizes  of  Clarendon,  351 ;  of  Jerusa- 
lem, 365 

Avignon,   24 

B. 

Bacon,   41 

Barbarossa,  i 

Barbizon   School,    145 

Basil  Valentine,   94 

Bateson,   Miss,   328 

Beau   Dieu,    13 

Beautiful   God,    105 

Beauty  and  usefulness,   113 

Beauvoisis,  Statutes  of,  365 

Bell-making,    133 

Beowulf,    1 80 

Berrengaria,    Queen,    320 

Bernardo  del  Carpio,   170 

Bernart  de  Ventadorn,    183 

Bernard  of   Cluny,  or   Morlaix,   205 

Bertrand   de   Born,    191 

Bestiarium,     164 

Bible   study,    234,    252 

Blanche    of    Castile,    289,     320 ;    as    a 

mother,  326 ;  as  a  ruler,  326 
Blessed  work,   125 
Boileau,    Stephen,   365 


Boniface  VII  and  American  Revolu- 
tion, 374 

Books,  beautiful,  150;  bequests,  155; 
collecting,  154,  157;  great  stone, 
"5 

Booklovers,    155 

Book-learning,     129 

Book  of  Arts,   Deeds,   Words,  5 

Borgo  Allegri,   141 

Botany,    149 

Bracton,   361 

Bracton's  digest,  15,  82 

Bremen,   420 

Brook    farm,    264 

C. 

Cahors,  24 

Calendar,   43 

Calvi,    College   of,    26 

Capital,   English,  created,  357 

Canon  law,  codified,  370 

Canticle   of   Sun,    258 

Carlyle,  Minnesong,  183;  Nibelungen, 
178 

Case    histories,    84 

Casimir  the  Great,  369 

Caspian   not  a  gulf,   406 

Castles  and  armories,  120 

Catalogues   of   libraries,    151 

Cathedral    Symbolism,    118 

Cavalcanti,    10 

Celano,    197 

Chalices,   113 

Charity  organizations,  27,   345 

Chartres,     glass,     14;     windows,     in 

Chauliac,  92 

Chemistry,    46;    not    forbidden,    93 

Chester  cycle,    240,    242 

Chrestien   de  Troyes,    175 

Chronicles,    224 

Cid,  El,  9 

Cimabue,    2,    12,    140 

Cino  da  Pistoia,  10 

Circulating    libraries,    149 

Clare,    St.,    and    St.    Francis,    322 

Clare,  St.,  320;  character,  321;  hap- 
piness, 322 ;  life,  320 

Clarendon    assizes,    351;    constitutions, 

„     35i 

Clerics  at  the  universities,  71 

Cloisters,  Lateran,  121 ;  St.  Paul's, 
Rome,  121 

Coal,   397 

Code  of   Hammurabi,   3 

Coeducation,  330 

Colleges,    Origin    of,    29 

Cologne,    420 

Common    Law,   361    • 

Commentaries  on   Law,   371 

Common  pleas,   35 

Comparative  university  attendance,  61 

Compayrfe,    67 

Complaints    of   books,    158 

Composition   of  matter,   38 

Condorcet,    34 

Conrad  of  Kirchberg,   188 

Conservation  of  energy,   39 

Cope  of  Ascoli,    115 

Corrections,  Optical,   131 


INDEX. 


487 


Cost  of  books,    156 

Crusades  and  democracy,    389 ;   Greene, 

on,    389 ;    Storrs    on,    388 ;    Stubbs 

on,    298 
Curtain   lectures,   331 

D. 

Eante  da  Maiano,  10 
ante  and  children,  313;  and  Milton, 
315;  and  Virgil,  316;  education, 
300;  in  America,  311;  in  Eng- 
land, 305 ;  in  Germany,  309 ;  in 
Italy,  304 ;  not  alone,  300 ;  power 
of  observation,  313;  present  esti- 
mation, 317;  sonnets,  302;  trou- 
badour, 303;  universality,  301 

Dante-Gesellschaft,    310 

Dean  Church's  Dante,  306 

Decay  of  Philosophy,   282 

Declaration     of     Independence,     Swiss, 
377 

Degrees,  36 

De    Maistre,    66 

Democracy     and     the     Crusades,     388; 
guilds,  378 

Denifle,    35 

De    Roo    on    pre-Columbian     America, 
400 

Dialectics,  33 

Dies   Irae,  Admirers   of,    199;   supreme, 
197 

Dietmar  von  Eist,   186 

Digest  of  common  law,  361 

Discipline   at   universities,    73 ;    and   de- 
mocracy,   76 

Disease  segregation,   343 

Dissection  not  forbidden,  91 

Dominicans    and    art,    139;    and    books, 
156 

St.     Dominic,    266;     and    St.     Francis, 
267 

Donatus,    Deposition    for    ignorance    of, 
30 

Drama    and    St.    Francis,    238 

Durandus,    117,    234 


Education,  classes,  7 ;  masses,  8 ;  pop- 
ular, 129;  of  women,  four  penods, 
331 

Edward  I,   2,   361 

Edward  VI  and  charity,  340 ;  educa- 
tion, 386 

El  Cid,  169,  169;  battle  scene,  170; 
daughters'  innocence,  172;  mar- 
riage, 171 ;  single  author,  169 

Emulation  of  workers,  125 

Encyclopedia,   23 1 

Enforcement  of  law,  366 

English  democracy,   378 

Enterprise,  commercial,  421 

Epic  poetry,   167 

Equality  of  women,   324,  389 

Erysipelas   segregated,   344 

Evelyn's    diary,    131 

Evolution  and  man,  3 

Experiment,   44 

Explosives,   42 

Exultet,   207 

F. 

Fehmic   Courts,   368 
Felix  of   Valois,   347 
Feminine  education,  330;  four  penods, 
no ;    reasons    for   decline,    333 


Ferguson,    97 

Francis,  St.,  great  disciples,  263;  in 
drama,  239;  influence  still,  266; 
life,  259;  literary  man,  255;  mod- 
ern interest  in,  261 ;  Ruskin  on. 
260 ;  second  order,  265 ;  third 
order,  265 ;  troubadour,  255 

Fraternal  insurance,   382 

Fraternity,   initiations,   425 

Frederick    II,    2 

Freedom,    development   of,   375 

Free  cities,  377 ;  schools,  385 

Freemen's   rights,   358 

Friars,  267 ;  Green's  tribute  to,  268 ; 
explorers,  409 

Froude,   97;   on   Reynard,  211 

Furniture,    122 

Finsen  anticipated,  89 
Five. Sisters,  York,   14,   no 
Founder  of  Hospitals,   337 

G. 

Gaddi,  2,   142 

Galsang  Gombeyev,  402 

Geography,  50 

German   Guild-hall,   London,  421 

Gerontius'  dream,  308 

Gild    merchant,    383 

Giotto,    2,     12,     142;    appreciation     of, 

145 ;   immense  work,   146 
Giotto's    tower,    122 
Gladstone   and    Richard   de   Bury,    160 
Glosses,    Law,    371 
Goethe's   Reynard,   213 
Goerres,    255 
Franciscans    and    Art,    139;    explorers, 

.394 

Gohier,  Urbain,  379 
Golden   Bull,  369 
Golden   Legend,  213 
Goodyear,    131 
Gothic,      development,      102;      English, 

100;   French,   North  German,   167; 

Sculpture,    105-107;    Spanish,    100; 

varieties,  12,  IQO,  167 
Grail  Legends,   174 
Gratian,    81 
Gray,  32 

Green    on    Matthew    Paris,    229 
Greatness  of  an  epoch,  6 
Gregorian  chant,  207 
Grotesque  in   Dante,  309 
Grounds  of  ignorance,   41 
Guido  de  Montpelier,  338 
Guido,    142 
Guilds,   132;   and  the  drama,    136;  and 

democracy,      378;       Boston,      382; 

London,   382;   number,  381;   rules, 

38;   list  of,   245 

H. 

Hamburg,    420 

Hamilton,   34 

Hammurabi,    4 

Hansa  Alamanniae,  422 ;  and  Denmark, 

419;    geese   cackle,   419;    obscurity 

of  origin,  416 
Harper,    52 

Hartman  von  Aue,   186 
Hayton,    412 

Healing  by   first   intention,   85 
Herodotus  and  Marco  Polo,  396 
History,   so-called,    127,    appendix 
Hollandus,  94 


488 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


Homer,   3 

Hospitals,   earliest,   337;    England,   339 
Hotel   Dieu,   339 ;   endowment,   339 
Human  life,  value,   367 
Human   rights,   366 
Humboldt  on  Dante,  311-315 
Humboldt,  47 

Humor  in  mystery  plays,  241 
Humphreys,    162 
Huysmans,    120 

Hymns    often    heard,     195 ;    and    lan- 
guages, 203 ;  seven  greatest,   199 


Ignorance  and  servitude,  127 
Illuminated  books,    162 
Indestructibility   of   matter,   39 
International   court,   424;   comity,   428; 

fraternity,   391 
Irnerius,    18-81 
Iron  work,   114 


Tenghis  Khan,   2 

Jerusalem  the  Golden,  205 

fessop,  Rev.  Augustus,  133 

Job,   3 

Jocelyn  of  Brakelond,  226;  and  Bos- 
well,  227;  selection,  227 

John  of  Carpini,  400 

John  of  Matha,   347 

John   of   Monte   Corvino,   410-412 

Joinville  and  the  poor,  297;  selection, 
228 

Journeymen,   135 

Justinian,  English,  362 

K. 

Kenil  worth,   121 
Kidney  disease,  84 


Lafenestre,   138-144 

Lamentations,   207 

Lanfranc,    37-83 

Lancelot,    175 

Lateran,   Council  of,  28 

Laurie,   59,   63,   65,   76 

Law,  Canon,  370;  French,  364;  Ger- 
man, 368;  Glosses,  371;  Hungar- 
ian, 369;  Polish,  369;  Spanish,  15 

Lea,  Henry  C,  60 

League,   Lombard,   417 

Legenda  Aurea,  213 

Lending  of  books,   152 

Lending  of  professors,   56 

Leo   XIII.   81 

Lepers,  Louis  IX  and,  297 

Leprosy  eradicated,  343 

Lerida,   24 

Lhasa  entered,  410 

Liberties  and  customs,  360;  English, 
358;  Hungary  and  Poland,  369 

Library  of  La  Ste.  Chapelle,  152;  cir- 
culating, 152,  165;  of  Hotel  Dieu, 
i§3>  of  the  Sorbonne,  153 

Lincoln,   96 

Lingard,   61 

Literature  for  women,  334 

Lodge,    Sir   Oliver,    40 

Longfellow,  209;  Dante,  311 

Louis  IX,  289;  books,  164;  chanty, 
296 ;  crusades,  298 ;  education, 


291;  father,  290-294;  husband, 
289;  justice,  293,  294;  law,  365; 
monks,  295  ;  son,  289 

Lowell  on   Dante,   311 

Ltibeck  punished,   418;  laws,   422 

Lully,    57 

Lunar  rainbows,  48 

M. 

Mabel   Rich,   327 

MacCarthy,   201 

Magna  Charta,  i,  350;  development  of, 
353;  excerpts,  352,  et  seq. 

Malory,    175 

Mandeville,  408 

Manning  on  Dante,  308 

Map   or   Mapes,    Walter,    174-176 

March  on  Latin  Hymns,   195 

Marco   Millioni,   396 

Maria  di  Novella,  331 

Masterpieces,    135 

Matter  and  form,  40;  constitution  of, 
40 

Matthew  Paris,  229;  Green's  tribute, 
229 

Meaning   of    Cathedral,    118 

Meistersingers,   10 

Merchants'  privileges,  359 

Merrie    England,    126 

Metaphysical  speculations,   33-37 

Method  of  study,   53 

Meyer,   49 

Middle    Ages,    place    of,     5 

Middle   class   students.    72 

Mill,   34 

Millet,    145 

Minnesingers,    10 

Modern  war  correspomdents  antici- 
pated, 225,  228 

Mondino,   93 

Money  and  privileges,   426 

Money  grabbers,  21^ 

Monks,   Idle,   414;   explorers,   413 

Monroe,    55 

Montalembert,    monks,    414;    laws,    364 

Montpelier,    23 

Morley,  Henry,  42,   157,    173,  244 

Most  read  books,  Ten,  209 

Motor   cars,    43 

Music,  Church,  206;  part,  207 

Mutual  Aid,   379 

Mystery  plays,  players,  247,  250; 
bible  study,  251;  influence,  252 

N. 

Names,  Medieval,  331 

Nations,   76 

Nealc,  206 

Needlework,    14 

Nerve  suture,  86 

Newman's  tribute  to  Dante,  306 

New  York  Times  Building,   123 

Nibelungeu,    177 

Noah  and  wife,  242 

NoTasco,    Peter,    348 

Notebook,   The   elegant,    54 

Novgorod  founded,  421 

Numbers  of  students,   63,  et  seq, 

Nurses'    habits,    345 

O. 

Odoric,   409 

One  thing  a  day,   54 

Optics,  44 


INDEX. 


489 


Optical   corrections,    131 
Opus  _Majus,    45 
Organized  charity,  381 
Osier,    108-323 
Oxford,  22 

P. 

Padua,  23 

Pagel,  90 ;  on  Vincent  of  Beauvais, 
233 

Palencia,    24 

Pange    Lingua,    199 

Papal   Court  and  academy,  31 

Parliament,  First  English,  14 

Parzifal,    188 

Peace  Burgs,   420 

Pennell,   Elizabeth  Robbins,  98 

Peregrinus,    37'44 

Perugia,    23 

Petroleum,    397 

Peyrols,    192 

Philobiblon,   157 

Philosophic  writers,  222 

Phosphorescence  in  Dante,  315 

Physical   geography,   47 

Place  of  women,  319 

Plain    Chant,    207 

Plumptre's    Dante,   310 

Polo,    Marco,    396 

Poor  students,   72 

Poor,  Washing  feet  of,  297 

Popes  and   Laws,   370 

Pope  Alexander  IV,  31;  Boniface 
VIII,  2;  Gregory  IX,  2,  30;  Hon- 
orius  IV,  2,  30;  Innocent  III,  2, 

Population    of    England,    61 
Potamian,   Brother,  37 
Piacenza,    23 
Practical  knowledge,  41 
Preparatory   schools,   26 
Pre-renaissance,  5,  254 
Professors'  publications,   79 
Progress  of  liberty,  386 


Oueen  Berengaria,  320 
ueen  Blanche  of  Castile,   320 

R. 

Ransom  of  prisoners,   347 

Raymond  of  Pennafort,  348 

Real   Estate  Law,   362 

Redemption  of  captives,  348 

Red-light   therapy,    89 

Religious  order  for  erysipelas,  345  \ 
for  slaves,  347 

Reinach,    103,    "6,    128 

Representative    government,    372*    3°oJ 

Renaissance,   5 

Reynard    the    Fox,    210;    original,    212 

Rheims,   195,    107 

Rhenish  cities,   420 

Rhymed   Latin,    104 

Rhyme,    origin,     199 

Richard  Coeur  de  Lion,  i 

Richard  de  Bury,  157?  «s  a  church- 
man, 161;  chaplains,  160;  charity, 
161 ;  place  in  history,  159 

Rich,  Mabel,  327;  and  her  sons,  327 

Robinson,   Fr.   Paschal,   257,  261 

Rod  in  school,   185 

Roland,  181 

Romance    of     Rose,     215;     charge    of 


dullness,    216;    poor    happy,     219; 

misers    miserable,    218;    satire    on 

money    grabbers,    217 
Rossetti    on    Dante 
Rubruquis,   403 ;   on   customs,   408 ;   on 

languages,  405,  407 
Kucellai  Madonna,  141 
Rudolph  of   Hapsburg,  2,   appendix 
Ruskin,   6,    123,    260,   309 
Rusticiano,    399 

S. 

Sadness  absent  in  Gothic  art,  147 
Saintsbury,   34,  36,   175,   180,   197,  223, 

226 

Saladin,    i 
Salamanca,   24 
Salamander,   asbestos,    398 
Salicet,  83 

Salimbene,  Friar,  403 
Salisbury,    129 
Saturday,  half-holiday,  379 
Schaff,   198,  205 
Scholasticism  and  style,  223 
Sculpture,    Amiens,    13,    105;    Rheims, 

105;  St.  Denis,  13 
Settlement    work,    325 ;    Seneca,    53 
Siena,   23 
Sighart,   47 

Simon  de  Montfort,   361 
Social   unrest,    124 
Sorbonne,    Robert,    53 
Sordello,    10 
St.  Bonayenture,  2,  203;  Clare,  2,  320; 

Dominic,    267 ;    Edmund,    72,    327 ; 

Elizabeth,  320,325;  Ferdinand,  15; 

Hugh,  2,  96;  Thomas,  203 
St.    Gall,   69 
St.  John,  Lateran,  121 
St.    Mary's    Abbey,    121 
St.  Paul's,  Rome,   121 
St.   Victor,  Adam  and  Hugh  of,  204 
Stabat    Mater,    200;    translations,    201 
Stained  Glass,  14;  Lincoln,  109;  York. 

no 

Stevenson,   R.  M.,  99 
Storrs    on    Crusades,    388 
Stubbs  on  Crusades,  298 
Students,  Support  of,  65 
Studies,    33 
Studium   generate,  21 
Symbolism,    117 
Systematizing  thought,  80 

T. 

Tarragona,    101 

Tartars,   Book  of,   402 

Tasso   and   Nibelungen,    179 

Taste,   Popular,    112 

Tate,   52 

Taxation   and   representation,    336;   no, 

without   representation,   374 
"The  Three  Eights,"  379 
Thibet,  410 

Thomas,  St.     See  Aquinas 
Thule,    51 
Toledo,  lot 
Toulouse,   24 
Tow.is  and  cathedrals,  9 
Trade    facilities,    4»5 
Travel,  medieval,  394 
Troubadours,   190 
Trouv&res,    10 


Turner,   35,    145 
Training  intellect 


490 


GREATEST  OF  CENTURIES. 


u. 

Ungreek,  only  thing,  99 

Universitas,    21 

University,  Bologna,  19,  58;  founda- 
tion, 18;  Orleans,  19;  Oxford,  58; 
Paris,  1 8,  58;  Salernum,  20; 
roughness,  73 

V. 

Vehmgerichte,  368 

Vercelli,    23 

Vicenza,  23 

Vienna   Cathedral,    168 

Vigilance  committees,  368 

Vigils,    holidays,    379 

Villehardouin,  224 ;  and  Xenophon,  225 

Vincent  t "  Beauvais,  231 ;  and  histori- 
cal writers,  231;  methods,  232; 
style,  233 

Virchow  and  evolution,  3;  on  hospi- 
tals, 338;  on  Pope  Innocent,  342 

Vocation  for  women,  322 

Vogelweide,  185 

Vpragine,   Jacobus   de,   213 

W. 

Wandering  students,  57 


Wander  jahre,    135 

Water  cure,  427 

Wernher,   187 

Whewell,   45 

Widows,  Magna  Charta,  354 

William  of  Rubruk,  403 

William  of  Salicet,  83 

William  of  St.    Gregory,   192 

Wolfram  yon  Eschenbach,  187 

Women,  in  hospitals,  .328;  in  litera- 
ture, 335;  occupations,  329;  posi- 
tion, 334 

Working  students,  60 

Wounds  of  neck,  86 

X. 

Xenophon,   and  Villehardouin,   225 
Y. 

Yeats,    113 

Yule,  Colonel,  401;  on  Odoric,  411;  on 
Rubruquis,  407 


Zimmern,    Miss,    on    Hansa,    415;    on 
medieval  initiations,   425 


YC  29760 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


